Redirecting console output to a Python string [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
How can I capture the stdout output of a child process?

I'm running a cat-like program in bash from Python:

   import os

   os.system('cat foo.txt')

How do I get the output of the shell command back in the Python script, something like:

   s = somefunction('cat foo.txt')

?

UPD: Here is a related thread.

dupe... stackoverflow.com/questions/923079/subprocess-and-stdout/923108 — Paolo Bergantino
– Paolo Bergantino, Commented Jun 15, 2009 at 7:53

ismail · Accepted Answer · 2009-06-15 07:49:39Z

16

Use the subprocess module.

from subprocess import Popen, PIPE

(stdout, stderr) = Popen(["cat","foo.txt"], stdout=PIPE).communicate()
print stdout

answered Jun 15, 2009 at 7:49

ismail

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