Python Script execute commands in Terminal
PythonTerminalPython Problem Overview
I read this somewhere a while ago but cant seem to find it. I am trying to find a command that will execute commands in the terminal and then output the result.
For example: the script will be:
command 'ls -l'
It will out the result of running that command in the terminal
Python Solutions
Solution 1 - Python
There are several ways to do this:
A simple way is using the os module:
import os
os.system("ls -l")
More complex things can be achieved with the subprocess module: for example:
import subprocess
test = subprocess.Popen(["ping","-W","2","-c", "1", "192.168.1.70"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
output = test.communicate()[0]
Solution 2 - Python
I prefer usage of subprocess module:
from subprocess import call
call(["ls", "-l"])
Reason is that if you want to pass some variable in the script this gives very easy way for example take the following part of the code
abc = a.c
call(["vim", abc])
Solution 3 - Python
In fact any question on subprocess will be a good read
Solution 4 - Python
import os
os.system("echo 'hello world'")
This should work. I do not know how to print the output into the python Shell.
Solution 5 - Python
You should also look into commands.getstatusoutput
This returns a tuple of length 2.. The first is the return integer (0 - when the commands is successful) second is the whole output as will be shown in the terminal.
For ls
import commands
s = commands.getstatusoutput('ls')
print s
>> (0, 'file_1\nfile_2\nfile_3')
s[1].split("\n")
>> ['file_1', 'file_2', 'file_3']
Solution 6 - Python
for python3 use subprocess
import subprocess
s = subprocess.getstatusoutput(f'ps -ef | grep python3')
print(s)
You can also check for errors:
import subprocess
s = subprocess.getstatusoutput('ls')
if s[0] == 0:
print(s[1])
else:
print('Custom Error {}'.format(s[1]))
# >>> Applications
# >>> Desktop
# >>> Documents
# >>> Downloads
# >>> Library
# >>> Movies
# >>> Music
# >>> Pictures
import subprocess
s = subprocess.getstatusoutput('lr')
if s[0] == 0:
print(s[1])
else:
print('Custom Error: {}'.format(s[1]))
# >>> Custom Error: /bin/sh: lr: command not found
Solution 7 - Python
In python3 the standard way is to use subprocess.run
res = subprocess.run(['ls', '-l'], capture_output=True)
print(res.stdout)
Solution 8 - Python
The os.popen() is pretty simply to use, but it has been deprecated since Python 2.6. You should use the subprocess module instead.
Solution 9 - Python
Jupyter
In a jupyter notebook you can use the magic function !
!echo "execute a command"
files = !ls -a /data/dir/ #get the output into a variable
ipython
To execute this as a .py script you would need to use ipython
files = get_ipython().getoutput('ls -a /data/dir/')
execute script
$ ipython my_script.py
Solution 10 - Python
- Running: subprocess.run
- Output: subprocess.PIPE
- Error: raise RuntimeError
#! /usr/bin/env python3
import subprocess
def runCommand (command):
output=subprocess.run(
command,
stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
if output.returncode != 0:
raise RuntimeError(
output.stderr.decode("utf-8"))
return output
output = runCommand ([command, arguments])
print (output.stdout.decode("utf-8"))
Solution 11 - Python
You could import the 'os' module and use it like this :
import os
os.system('#DesiredAction')