I need to write a wrapper around a shell command that prints its stdout and stderr in real time back to stdout and stderr respectively, while also allowing the user to interact and send stdin to it, if the process prompts for input.
Note that pexpect.interact() almost solves the problem, except that it combines all stdout and stderr and sends it back to stdout. And there appears no way to stop it doing that.
What I have so far, is a method to read stdout and stderr from a process via subprocess.Popen:
def _popen_command(
command: List[str]
) -> None:
"""
Run a shell command with Popen line by line
in real time without redirecting stdout or stderr.
"""
with subprocess.Popen(
command,
stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
stderr=subprocess.PIPE
) as proc:
selector = selectors.DefaultSelector()
selector.register(proc.stdout, selectors.EVENT_READ)
selector.register(proc.stderr, selectors.EVENT_READ)
eof = False
while not eof:
for key, _ in selector.select():
data = key.fileobj.read1(1).decode()
if not data:
eof = True
if key.fileobj is proc.stdout:
print(data, end="")
else:
print(data, end="", file=sys.stderr)
I don't believe an answer exists with all of these features exists in Stack Overflow: handles stdout, stderr, in real time, line by line, and prints them back to stdout, stderr, respectively, and also allows arbitrary interaction with stdin.
Is it possible to do this?
The following code does not write into the log file which I am creating (Dm_Log.txt). But if I comment out stdout,stderr = process.communicate() then it does. If I do not use communicate, subprocess stalls since I am doing process.wait(). How to resolve this? I need to write in the log file and run the process too.
logfilePath = self.psexeclogs + 'Dm_Log.txt'
logfile = file(logfilePath,'w')
try:
process = subprocess.Popen(drivemaster_open_command, stdout = subprocess.PIPE,stderr = subprocess.PIPE)
stdout, stderr = process.communicate()
for line in process.stderr:
print ' '
sys.stderr.write(line)
logfile.write(line)
process.wait()
except OSError:
print "********COULD NOT FIND PSEXEC.EXE, PLEASE REINSTALL AND SET THE PATH VARIABLE PROPERLY********\n"
#Close the logfile first
logfile.close()
After you use communicate as it wait for process to terminate, then you cannot use process.stderr instead you just can use stderr.
Popen.communicate(input=None)
Interact with process: Send data to stdin. Read data from stdout and stderr, until end-of-file is reached. Wait for process to terminate
for line in stderr:
print ' '
sys.stderr.write(line)
logfile.write(line)
This is a follow up to this question, but if I want to pass an argument to stdin to subprocess, how can I get the output in real time? This is what I currently have; I also tried replacing Popen with call from the subprocess module and this just leads to the script hanging.
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE, STDOUT
cmd = 'rsync --rsh=ssh -rv --files-from=- thisdir/ servername:folder/'
p = Popen(cmd.split(), stdout=PIPE, stdin=PIPE, stderr=STDOUT)
subfolders = '\n'.join(['subfolder1','subfolder2'])
output = p.communicate(input=subfolders)[0]
print output
In the former question where I did not have to pass stdin I was suggested to use p.stdout.readline, there there is no room there to pipe anything to stdin.
Addendum: This works for the transfer, but I see the output only at the end and I would like to see the details of the transfer while it's happening.
In order to grab stdout from the subprocess in real time you need to decide exactly what behavior you want; specifically, you need to decide whether you want to deal with the output line-by-line or character-by-character, and whether you want to block while waiting for output or be able to do something else while waiting.
It looks like it will probably suffice for your case to read the output in line-buffered fashion, blocking until each complete line comes in, which means the convenience functions provided by subprocess are good enough:
p = subprocess.Popen(some_cmd, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
# Grab stdout line by line as it becomes available. This will loop until
# p terminates.
while p.poll() is None:
l = p.stdout.readline() # This blocks until it receives a newline.
print l
# When the subprocess terminates there might be unconsumed output
# that still needs to be processed.
print p.stdout.read()
If you need to write to the stdin of the process, just use another pipe:
p = subprocess.Popen(some_cmd, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stdin=subprocess.PIPE)
# Send input to p.
p.stdin.write("some input\n")
p.stdin.flush()
# Now start grabbing output.
while p.poll() is None:
l = p.stdout.readline()
print l
print p.stdout.read()
Pace the other answer, there's no need to indirect through a file in order to pass input to the subprocess.
something like this I think
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE, STDOUT
p = Popen('c:/python26/python printingTest.py', stdout = PIPE,
stderr = PIPE)
for line in iter(p.stdout.readline, ''):
print line
p.stdout.close()
using an iterator will return live results basically ..
in order to send input to stdin you would need something like
other_input = "some extra input stuff"
with open("to_input.txt","w") as f:
f.write(other_input)
p = Popen('c:/python26/python printingTest.py < some_input_redirection_thing',
stdin = open("to_input.txt"),
stdout = PIPE,
stderr = PIPE)
this would be similar to the linux shell command of
%prompt%> some_file.o < cat to_input.txt
see alps answer for better passing to stdin
If you pass all your input before starting reading the output and if by "real-time" you mean whenever the subprocess flushes its stdout buffer:
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE, STDOUT
cmd = 'rsync --rsh=ssh -rv --files-from=- thisdir/ servername:folder/'
p = Popen(cmd.split(), stdout=PIPE, stdin=PIPE, stderr=STDOUT, bufsize=1)
subfolders = '\n'.join(['subfolder1','subfolder2'])
p.stdin.write(subfolders)
p.stdin.close() # eof
for line in iter(p.stdout.readline, ''):
print line, # do something with the output here
p.stdout.close()
rc = p.wait()
I want output from execute Test_Pipe.py, I tried following code on Linux but it did not work.
Test_Pipe.py
import time
while True :
print "Someting ..."
time.sleep(.1)
Caller.py
import subprocess as subp
import time
proc = subp.Popen(["python", "Test_Pipe.py"], stdout=subp.PIPE, stdin=subp.PIPE)
while True :
data = proc.stdout.readline() #block / wait
print data
time.sleep(.1)
The line proc.stdout.readline() was blocked, so no data prints out.
You obviously can use subprocess.communicate but I think you are looking for real time input and output.
readline was blocked because the process is probably waiting on your input. You can read character by character to overcome this like the following:
import subprocess
import sys
process = subprocess.Popen(
cmd, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE
)
while True:
out = process.stdout.read(1)
if out == '' and process.poll() != None:
break
if out != '':
sys.stdout.write(out)
sys.stdout.flush()
Nadia's snippet does work but calling read with a 1 byte buffer is highly unrecommended. The better way to do this would be to set the stdout file descriptor to nonblocking using fcntl
fcntl.fcntl(
proc.stdout.fileno(),
fcntl.F_SETFL,
fcntl.fcntl(proc.stdout.fileno(), fcntl.F_GETFL) | os.O_NONBLOCK,
)
and then using select to test if the data is ready
while proc.poll() == None:
readx = select.select([proc.stdout.fileno()], [], [])[0]
if readx:
chunk = proc.stdout.read()
print chunk
She was correct in that your problem must be different from what you posted as Caller.py and Test_Pipe.py do work as provided.
https://derrickpetzold.com/p/capturing-output-from-ffmpeg-python/
Test_Pipe.py buffers its stdout by default so proc in Caller.py doesn't see any output until the child's buffer is full (if the buffer size is 8KB then it takes around a minute to fill Test_Pipe.py's stdout buffer).
To make the output unbuffered (line-buffered for text streams) you could pass -u flag to the child Python script. It allows to read subprocess' output line by line in "real-time":
import sys
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
proc = Popen([sys.executable, "-u", "Test_Pipe.py"], stdout=PIPE, bufsize=1)
for line in iter(proc.stdout.readline, b''):
print line,
proc.communicate()
See links in Python: read streaming input from subprocess.communicate() on how to solve the block-buffering issue for non-Python child processes.
To avoid the many problems that can always arise with buffering for tasks such as "getting the subprocess's output to the main process in real time", I always recommend using pexpect for all non-Windows platform, wexpect on Windows, instead of subprocess, when such tasks are desired.
I want to subprocess.Popen() rsync.exe in Windows, and print the stdout in Python.
My code works, but it doesn't catch the progress until a file transfer is done! I want to print the progress for each file in real time.
Using Python 3.1 now since I heard it should be better at handling IO.
import subprocess, time, os, sys
cmd = "rsync.exe -vaz -P source/ dest/"
p, line = True, 'start'
p = subprocess.Popen(cmd,
shell=True,
bufsize=64,
stdin=subprocess.PIPE,
stderr=subprocess.PIPE,
stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
for line in p.stdout:
print(">>> " + str(line.rstrip()))
p.stdout.flush()
Some rules of thumb for subprocess.
Never use shell=True. It needlessly invokes an extra shell process to call your program.
When calling processes, arguments are passed around as lists. sys.argv in python is a list, and so is argv in C. So you pass a list to Popen to call subprocesses, not a string.
Don't redirect stderr to a PIPE when you're not reading it.
Don't redirect stdin when you're not writing to it.
Example:
import subprocess, time, os, sys
cmd = ["rsync.exe", "-vaz", "-P", "source/" ,"dest/"]
p = subprocess.Popen(cmd,
stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)
for line in iter(p.stdout.readline, b''):
print(">>> " + line.rstrip())
That said, it is probable that rsync buffers its output when it detects that it is connected to a pipe instead of a terminal. This is the default behavior - when connected to a pipe, programs must explicitly flush stdout for realtime results, otherwise standard C library will buffer.
To test for that, try running this instead:
cmd = [sys.executable, 'test_out.py']
and create a test_out.py file with the contents:
import sys
import time
print ("Hello")
sys.stdout.flush()
time.sleep(10)
print ("World")
Executing that subprocess should give you "Hello" and wait 10 seconds before giving "World". If that happens with the python code above and not with rsync, that means rsync itself is buffering output, so you are out of luck.
A solution would be to connect direct to a pty, using something like pexpect.
I know this is an old topic, but there is a solution now. Call the rsync with option --outbuf=L. Example:
cmd=['rsync', '-arzv','--backup','--outbuf=L','source/','dest']
p = subprocess.Popen(cmd,
stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
for line in iter(p.stdout.readline, b''):
print '>>> {}'.format(line.rstrip())
Depending on the use case, you might also want to disable the buffering in the subprocess itself.
If the subprocess will be a Python process, you could do this before the call:
os.environ["PYTHONUNBUFFERED"] = "1"
Or alternatively pass this in the env argument to Popen.
Otherwise, if you are on Linux/Unix, you can use the stdbuf tool. E.g. like:
cmd = ["stdbuf", "-oL"] + cmd
See also here about stdbuf or other options.
On Linux, I had the same problem of getting rid of the buffering. I finally used "stdbuf -o0" (or, unbuffer from expect) to get rid of the PIPE buffering.
proc = Popen(['stdbuf', '-o0'] + cmd, stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE)
stdout = proc.stdout
I could then use select.select on stdout.
See also https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/25372/
for line in p.stdout:
...
always blocks until the next line-feed.
For "real-time" behaviour you have to do something like this:
while True:
inchar = p.stdout.read(1)
if inchar: #neither empty string nor None
print(str(inchar), end='') #or end=None to flush immediately
else:
print('') #flush for implicit line-buffering
break
The while-loop is left when the child process closes its stdout or exits.
read()/read(-1) would block until the child process closed its stdout or exited.
Your problem is:
for line in p.stdout:
print(">>> " + str(line.rstrip()))
p.stdout.flush()
the iterator itself has extra buffering.
Try doing like this:
while True:
line = p.stdout.readline()
if not line:
break
print line
You cannot get stdout to print unbuffered to a pipe (unless you can rewrite the program that prints to stdout), so here is my solution:
Redirect stdout to sterr, which is not buffered. '<cmd> 1>&2' should do it. Open the process as follows: myproc = subprocess.Popen('<cmd> 1>&2', stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
You cannot distinguish from stdout or stderr, but you get all output immediately.
Hope this helps anyone tackling this problem.
To avoid caching of output you might wanna try pexpect,
child = pexpect.spawn(launchcmd,args,timeout=None)
while True:
try:
child.expect('\n')
print(child.before)
except pexpect.EOF:
break
PS : I know this question is pretty old, still providing the solution which worked for me.
PPS: got this answer from another question
p = subprocess.Popen(command,
bufsize=0,
universal_newlines=True)
I am writing a GUI for rsync in python, and have the same probelms. This problem has troubled me for several days until i find this in pyDoc.
If universal_newlines is True, the file objects stdout and stderr are opened as text files in universal newlines mode. Lines may be terminated by any of '\n', the Unix end-of-line convention, '\r', the old Macintosh convention or '\r\n', the Windows convention. All of these external representations are seen as '\n' by the Python program.
It seems that rsync will output '\r' when translate is going on.
if you run something like this in a thread and save the ffmpeg_time property in a property of a method so you can access it, it would work very nice
I get outputs like this:
output be like if you use threading in tkinter
input = 'path/input_file.mp4'
output = 'path/input_file.mp4'
command = "ffmpeg -y -v quiet -stats -i \"" + str(input) + "\" -metadata title=\"#alaa_sanatisharif\" -preset ultrafast -vcodec copy -r 50 -vsync 1 -async 1 \"" + output + "\""
process = subprocess.Popen(command, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT, universal_newlines=True, shell=True)
for line in self.process.stdout:
reg = re.search('\d\d:\d\d:\d\d', line)
ffmpeg_time = reg.group(0) if reg else ''
print(ffmpeg_time)
Change the stdout from the rsync process to be unbuffered.
p = subprocess.Popen(cmd,
shell=True,
bufsize=0, # 0=unbuffered, 1=line-buffered, else buffer-size
stdin=subprocess.PIPE,
stderr=subprocess.PIPE,
stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
I've noticed that there is no mention of using a temporary file as intermediate. The following gets around the buffering issues by outputting to a temporary file and allows you to parse the data coming from rsync without connecting to a pty. I tested the following on a linux box, and the output of rsync tends to differ across platforms, so the regular expressions to parse the output may vary:
import subprocess, time, tempfile, re
pipe_output, file_name = tempfile.TemporaryFile()
cmd = ["rsync", "-vaz", "-P", "/src/" ,"/dest"]
p = subprocess.Popen(cmd, stdout=pipe_output,
stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)
while p.poll() is None:
# p.poll() returns None while the program is still running
# sleep for 1 second
time.sleep(1)
last_line = open(file_name).readlines()
# it's possible that it hasn't output yet, so continue
if len(last_line) == 0: continue
last_line = last_line[-1]
# Matching to "[bytes downloaded] number% [speed] number:number:number"
match_it = re.match(".* ([0-9]*)%.* ([0-9]*:[0-9]*:[0-9]*).*", last_line)
if not match_it: continue
# in this case, the percentage is stored in match_it.group(1),
# time in match_it.group(2). We could do something with it here...
In Python 3, here's a solution, which takes a command off the command line and delivers real-time nicely decoded strings as they are received.
Receiver (receiver.py):
import subprocess
import sys
cmd = sys.argv[1:]
p = subprocess.Popen(cmd, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
for line in p.stdout:
print("received: {}".format(line.rstrip().decode("utf-8")))
Example simple program that could generate real-time output (dummy_out.py):
import time
import sys
for i in range(5):
print("hello {}".format(i))
sys.stdout.flush()
time.sleep(1)
Output:
$python receiver.py python dummy_out.py
received: hello 0
received: hello 1
received: hello 2
received: hello 3
received: hello 4