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python: multiprocessing.Pipe and redirecting stderr on Windows

I've a main process where I open a multiprocessing.Pipe(False) and send the writing end to a worker Process. Then, in the worker process, I run a Java program using subprocces.Popen(['java', 'myprogram'], stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE). I need to redirect the error of this subprocess to the writing end of multiprocessing.Pipe
For this I referred to this answer by Ilija as this is exactly what I want to achieve, but on my machine(Windows), it throws OSError: [Errno 9] Bad file descriptor
Machine details:
OS - Windows 10 (64bit)
Python version - 3.7.4
Code:
Method 1 (Ilija's answer)
def worker(w_conn):
os.dup2(w_conn.fileno(), 2)
sp = subprocess.Popen(['java', 'myprogram'], stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
sp.wait()
w_conn.close()
def main():
r_conn, w_conn = multiprocessing.Pipe(False)
process = multiprocessing.Process(target=worker, args=(w_conn,))
process.start()
while not r_conn.poll() and not w_conn.closed:
# Do stuff
else:
# Read error from r_conn, and handle it
r_conn.close()
process.join()
if __name__=='__main__':
main()
Error:
Process Process-1:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\lib\multiprocessing\process.py", line 297, in _bootstrap
self.run()
File "C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\lib\multiprocessing\process.py", line 99, in run
self._target(*self._args, **self._kwargs)
File "C:\Users\User\Desktop\Workspace\Error.py", line 14, in worker
os.dup2(w_conn.fileno(), 2)
OSError: [Errno 9] Bad file descriptor
Method 2: In worker function, sending w_conn as argument to Popen
def worker(w_conn):
sp = subprocess.Popen(['java', 'myprogram'], stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=w_conn)
sp.wait()
w_conn.close()
Error:
Process Process-1:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\lib\multiprocessing\process.py", line 297, in _bootstrap
self.run()
File "C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\lib\multiprocessing\process.py", line 99, in run
self._target(*self._args, **self._kwargs)
File "C:\Users\User\Desktop\Workspace\Error.py", line 13, in worker
sp = subprocess.Popen(['java', 'myprogram'], stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=w_conn)
File "C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\lib\subprocess.py", line 728, in __init__
errread, errwrite) = self._get_handles(stdin, stdout, stderr)
File "C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\lib\subprocess.py", line 1077, in _get_handles
errwrite = msvcrt.get_osfhandle(stderr.fileno())
OSError: [Errno 9] Bad file descriptor
Is there any workaround/alternate method to achive this on Windows?

I still don't know why "Method 1" is not working. Any information regarding this will be appreciated.
"Method 2" is wrong altogether as we can't use Connection object (returned by multiprocessing.Pipe()) as a file handle in subprocess.Popen.
What works is checking for data in stderr of subprocess sp and sending the data through w_conn to main process.
def worker(w_conn):
sp = subprocess.Popen(['java', 'myprogram'], stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
sp.wait()
if sp.stderr.seek(0, io.SEEK_END)>0:
w_conn.send(sp.stderr.read())
w_conn.close()

using popen shows WindowsError: [Error 2] The system cannot find the file specified

windows 7 python 2.7
when I use popen to open a process：
from ctypes import *
dldtool = cdll.LoadLibrary(r'main.dll')
cmd = "dld_tool -c {} -r programmer.bin -f {}".format(port,file)
print cmd
with LOCK:
process = Popen(cmd, stdout=PIPE)
while process.poll() is None:
out = process.stdout.readline()
if out != '':
print out
error occurs：
process = Popen(cmd, stdout=PIPE)
File "C:\Python27\lib\subprocess.py", line 390, in __init__
errread, errwrite)
File "C:\Python27\lib\subprocess.py", line 640, in _execute_child
startupinfo)
WindowsError: [Error 2] The system cannot find the file specified
The main.dll is in the working directory. should I change the code in python or change the any config?

You should use either the shell=True parameter if you want to pass the entire command with arguments as one string:
process = Popen(cmd, stdout=PIPE, shell=True)
or shlex.split to split your command line into a list (after importing shlex):
process = Popen(shlex.split(cmd), stdout=PIPE)
Otherwise the entire command line with arguments would be treated as one file name, and the system naturally would not be able to find it.

Running a list command strings with subprocess popen and getting the output

I'm trying to run multiple UNIX commands in a python script like this
import subprocess
cmds = ['sleep 3', 'uptime','time ls -l /']
p = subprocess.Popen(cmds,stdout=subprocess.PIPE,shell=True)
while p.poll() is None:
time.sleep(0.5)
tempdata = p.stdout.read()
print(tempdata)
However my output does not contain all output and doesn't seem to run all the commands. Setting shell=False also causes an error.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "task1.py", line 32, in ?
p = subprocess.Popen(commands,stdout=subprocess.PIPE,stderr=subprocess.PIPE,shell=False)
File "/usr/lib64/python36/subprocess.py", line 550, in __init__
errread, errwrite)
File "/usr/lib64/python36/subprocess.py", line 996, in _execute_child
raise child_exception
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory

When you create a new process, you don't pass it a list of commands to run; rather, you pass it a single command -- either as a string (with shell=True) or as a list of args (with shell=False).
import subprocess
cmds = ['sleep 1', 'uptime', 'ls -l /']
for cmd in cmds:
stdout = subprocess.check_output(cmd, shell=True)
print('\n# {}'.format(cmd))
print(stdout)
If you just want to collect stdout, subprocess.check_output() might be simpler than Popen() -- but either approach will work, depending on what you need to do with the process.

Your problem is 'sleep 3' causes the error you get from the traceback, when I removed that it worked.

To run all for these:
cmds = ['sleep 3', 'uptime','time ls -l /']
You have to call popen for each of them:
for cmd in cmds:
p = subprocess.Popen(cmd, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True)
while p.poll() is None:
time.sleep(0.5)
output = p.stdout.read()
Or simpler:
for cmd in cmds:
output = subprocess.check_output(cmd, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True)
Second question: This captures all output written to stdout. To capture also stderr, redirect that into subprocess.PIPE as well.

data stream python subprocess.check_output exe from another location

I would like to run an exe from this directory:/home/pi/pi_sensors-master/bin/Release/
This exe is then run by tying mono i2c.exe and it runs fine.
I would like to get this output in python which is in a completely different directory.
I know that I should use subprocess.check_output to take the output as a string.
I tried to implement this in python:
import subprocess
import os
cmd = "/home/pi/pi_sensors-master/bin/Release/"
os.chdir(cmd)
process=subprocess.check_output(['mono i2c.exe'])
print process
However, I received this error:
The output would usually be a data stream with a new number each time, is it possible to capture this output and store it as a constantly changing variable?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Your command syntax is incorrect, which is actually generating the exception. You want to call mono i2c.exe, so your command list should look like:
subprocess.check_output(['mono', 'i2c.exe']) # Notice the comma separation.
Try the following:
import subprocess
import os
executable = "/home/pi/pi_sensors-master/bin/Release/i2c.exe"
print subprocess.check_output(['mono', executable])
The sudo is not a problem as long as you give the full path to the file and you are sure that running the mono command as sudo works.
I can generate the same error by doing a ls -l:
>>> subprocess.check_output(['ls -l'])
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 537, in check_output
process = Popen(stdout=PIPE, *popenargs, **kwargs)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 679, in __init__
errread, errwrite)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1249, in _execute_child
raise child_exception
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
However when you separate the command from the options:
>>> subprocess.check_output(['ls', '-l'])
# outputs my entire folder contents which are quite large.
I strongly advice you to use the subprocess.Popen -object to deal with external processes. Use Popen.communicate() to get the data from both stdout and stderr. This way you should not run into blocking problems.
import os
import subprocess
executable = "/home/pi/pi_sensors-master/bin/Release/i2c.exe"
proc = subprocess.Popen(['mono', executable])
try:
outs, errs = proc.communicate(timeout=15) # Times out after 15 seconds.
except TimeoutExpired:
proc.kill()
outs, errs = proc.communicate()
Or you can call the communicate in a loop if you want a 'data-stream' of sort, an answer from this question:
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
executable = "/home/pi/pi_sensors-master/bin/Release/i2c.exe"
p = Popen(["mono", executable], stdout=PIPE, bufsize=1)
for line in iter(p.stdout.readline, b''):
print line,
p.communicate() # close p.stdout, wait for the subprocess to exit

subprocess.Popen Argument list is too long

I use
proc = subprocess.Popen(cmd,
stdin=subprocess.PIPE,
stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
stderr=subprocess.STDOUT,
shell=shell,
universal_newlines=False,
env=env)
And the code fails with the exception
File "subprocess.py", line 623, in __init__
File "subprocess.py", line 1141, in _execute_child
OSError: [Errno 7] Argument list too long
I found that my command length was really huge and hence this fails. And now I have correct it. However, I'm trying to find what is the maximum length of the command string that I can pass to subprocess Popen.

This is OS dependent. In windows your options are to try powershell or to find a different way of passing arguments to the application you are calling.