Getting terminal output of a command from python

Question

I've tried to write a function that includes bash command. I want to assign the output of the command to variable in my python I mean, the function gitCheck find the directory of my git Repository and assign it to gitRep but It gives me only 0. Is there anyone to know how could I do that ? Thanks in advance

def gitCheck():
reference_repositories_path="cat $HOME/.git_reference_repositories | sed 's/GIT_REFERENCES_PATH=//'"
gitRep=os.system(reference_repositories_path)
print gitRep

output should be /home/gwapps/Desktop/GIT_REFERENCE_REPOSITORIES but it gives me 0

Answer 1

You are getting the exit status. According to os.system() docs:

On Unix, the return value is the exit status of the process encoded in the format specified for wait().

...

The subprocess module provides more powerful facilities for spawning new processes and retrieving their results; using that module is preferable to using this function.

So, if you want to retrieve the output of the command, use subprocess module. There are tons of examples here on SO, e.g.:

• Assign output of os.system to a variable and prevent it from being displayed on the screen
• Equivalent of Bash Backticks in Python