How to redirect system call output to a string

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Pipe subprocess standard output to a variable

I am running a python program :

import os
os.system("ls") # ls command runs on the terminal

To store the output in a file :

os.system("ls > a.txt")

What I need is, it stores the output in some temporary string . IS THAT POSSIBLE ??

No. You can't do that. Read the content of a.txt into a variable after the system call. Better yet use python pipes. — SidJ, Jul 03 '12 at 06:56
@SridharJagannathan You are wrong. Of course you can do that, using the subprocess module of python. — sloth, Jul 03 '12 at 06:58

Igor Chubin · Answer 1 · 2012-07-03T07:15:22.720

5

import subprocess
output = subprocess.Popen(["ls"], stdout = subprocess.PIPE, stderr = subprocess.STDOUT).communicate()[0]

Here you run the external command ls and redirects both the stderr and stdout strewams of the command to the variable output.

Where the streams have to be redirected are specified using the arguments stdout and stderr of the Popen function.

edited Jul 03 '12 at 07:15

answered Jul 03 '12 at 07:02

Igor Chubin

1 Answers1