RealTime output from a subprogram to stdout of a pyQT Widget

Question

Hi I have seen there are already many questions on this issue however none of them seems to answer my query .

As per below link i even tried winpexpect as i am using windows , however it dosent seems to e working for me . Getting realtime output from ffmpeg to be used in progress bar (PyQt4, stdout)

I am running a subprogram with subprocess.Popen and want to see the real time result in a pyQt Widget. Currently it shows the result in the pyQt widget but only after the sub command is finished executing . I need to know if there s a way when we can get the output from a subprocess at real time into the window . See the code below which i tried for all this .

import sys
import os
from PyQt4 import QtGui,QtCore
from threading import Thread
import subprocess
#from winpexpect import winspawn



class EmittingStream(QtCore.QObject):
    textWritten = QtCore.pyqtSignal(str)

    def write(self, text):
        self.textWritten.emit(str(text))

class gui(QtGui.QMainWindow):

    def __init__(self):
    # ...
        super(gui, self).__init__()
    # Install the custom output stream
        sys.stdout = EmittingStream(textWritten=self.normalOutputWritten)
        self.initUI()

    def normalOutputWritten(self, text):
        cursor = self.textEdit.textCursor()
        cursor.movePosition(QtGui.QTextCursor.End)
        cursor.insertText(text)
        self.textEdit.ensureCursorVisible()

    def callProgram(self):

        command="ping 127.0.0.1"
        #winspawn(command)
              py=subprocess.Popen(command.split(),stdout=subprocess.PIPE,stderr=subprocess.PIPE,shell=True)
        result,_=py.communicate()
        for line in result:
            print line
        print result


    def initUI(self):
        self.setGeometry(100,100,300,300)
        self.show()

        self.textEdit=QtGui.QTextEdit(self)
        self.textEdit.show()
        self.textEdit.setGeometry(20,40,200,200)

        print "changing sys.out"
        print "hello"

        thread = Thread(target = self.callProgram)
        thread.start()


#Function Main Start
def main():
    app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
    ui=gui()
    sys.exit(app.exec_())
#Function Main END

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Does it have to be ``subprocess``? Can't you use ``QProcess``? — Avaris, Feb 28 '14 at 22:29

score 31 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 01 '14 at 06:18

QProcess is very similar to subprocess, but it's much more convenient to use in (Py)Qt code. Because it utilizes signals/slots. Also, it runs the process asynchronously so you don't have use QThread.

I've modified (and cleaned) your code for QProcess:

import sys
from PyQt4 import QtGui,QtCore

class gui(QtGui.QMainWindow):
    def __init__(self):
        super(gui, self).__init__()
        self.initUI()

    def dataReady(self):
        cursor = self.output.textCursor()
        cursor.movePosition(cursor.End)
        cursor.insertText(str(self.process.readAll()))
        self.output.ensureCursorVisible()

    def callProgram(self):
        # run the process
        # `start` takes the exec and a list of arguments
        self.process.start('ping',['127.0.0.1'])

    def initUI(self):
        # Layout are better for placing widgets
        layout = QtGui.QHBoxLayout()
        self.runButton = QtGui.QPushButton('Run')
        self.runButton.clicked.connect(self.callProgram)

        self.output = QtGui.QTextEdit()

        layout.addWidget(self.output)
        layout.addWidget(self.runButton)

        centralWidget = QtGui.QWidget()
        centralWidget.setLayout(layout)
        self.setCentralWidget(centralWidget)

        # QProcess object for external app
        self.process = QtCore.QProcess(self)
        # QProcess emits `readyRead` when there is data to be read
        self.process.readyRead.connect(self.dataReady)

        # Just to prevent accidentally running multiple times
        # Disable the button when process starts, and enable it when it finishes
        self.process.started.connect(lambda: self.runButton.setEnabled(False))
        self.process.finished.connect(lambda: self.runButton.setEnabled(True))


#Function Main Start
def main():
    app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
    ui=gui()
    ui.show()
    sys.exit(app.exec_())
#Function Main END

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

`.readAll()` is a confusing name. I had to read Qt docs to find out that it reads only available data i.e., it won't block `dataReady()` method. — jfs, Mar 01 '14 at 17:20
@Avaris - This is exactly what i wanted , Thanks for this . Still wondering why i couldn't find it earlier and sorry for delayed response :) — paarth batra, Mar 05 '14 at 03:32
N.B. Python3 users: substitute `str(self.process.readAll())` with `str(self.process.readAll(), 'utf-8')` — Pocketsand, Jul 30 '17 at 19:02
If you ever have multiple process signals (either from different parts of your code, or multiple at the same time) I like to pass the process to the print/write function with a lambda instead of referencing it in the class. So instead of self.process I would add "process" as an argument of dataReady() i.e. dataReady(self, process). And then the signal would look like self.process.readyRead.connect(lambda: self.dataReady(self.process)) — Spencer, Dec 07 '17 at 19:47

Vincent Stragier · Answer 2 · 2022-02-20T22:48:38.950

Here is an adaptation of the accepted answer for PyQt6 and PyQt5.

PyQt6:

from PyQt6 import QtCore, QtWidgets
import sys

# On Windows it looks like cp850 is used for my console. We need it to decode the QByteArray correctly.
# Based on https://forum.qt.io/topic/85064/qbytearray-to-string/2
import ctypes
CP_console = f"cp{ctypes.cdll.kernel32.GetConsoleOutputCP()}"


class gui(QtWidgets.QMainWindow):
    def __init__(self):
        super(gui, self).__init__()
        self.initUI()

    def dataReady(self):
        cursor = self.output.textCursor()
        cursor.movePosition(cursor.MoveOperation.End)

        # Here we have to decode the QByteArray
        cursor.insertText(
            str(self.process.readAll().data().decode(CP_console)))
        self.output.ensureCursorVisible()

    def callProgram(self):
        # run the process
        # `start` takes the exec and a list of arguments
        self.process.start('ping', ['127.0.0.1'])

    def initUI(self):
        # Layout are better for placing widgets
        layout = QtWidgets.QVBoxLayout()
        self.runButton = QtWidgets.QPushButton('Run')
        self.runButton.clicked.connect(self.callProgram)

        self.output = QtWidgets.QTextEdit()

        layout.addWidget(self.output)
        layout.addWidget(self.runButton)

        centralWidget = QtWidgets.QWidget()
        centralWidget.setLayout(layout)
        self.setCentralWidget(centralWidget)

        # QProcess object for external app
        self.process = QtCore.QProcess(self)
        # QProcess emits `readyRead` when there is data to be read
        self.process.readyRead.connect(self.dataReady)

        # Just to prevent accidentally running multiple times
        # Disable the button when process starts, and enable it when it finishes
        self.process.started.connect(lambda: self.runButton.setEnabled(False))
        self.process.finished.connect(lambda: self.runButton.setEnabled(True))

# Function Main Start


def main():
    app = QtWidgets.QApplication(sys.argv)
    ui = gui()
    ui.show()
    sys.exit(app.exec())
# Function Main END


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

PyQt5:

from PyQt5 import QtCore, QtWidgets
import sys

# On Windows it looks like cp850 is used for my console. We need it to decode the QByteArray correctly.
# Based on https://forum.qt.io/topic/85064/qbytearray-to-string/2
import ctypes
CP_console = f"cp{ctypes.cdll.kernel32.GetConsoleOutputCP()}"


class gui(QtWidgets.QMainWindow):
    def __init__(self):
        super(gui, self).__init__()
        self.initUI()

    def dataReady(self):
        cursor = self.output.textCursor()
        cursor.movePosition(cursor.End)

        # Here we have to decode the QByteArray
        cursor.insertText(
            str(self.process.readAll().data().decode(CP_console)))
        self.output.ensureCursorVisible()

    def callProgram(self):
        # run the process
        # `start` takes the exec and a list of arguments
        self.process.start('ping', ['127.0.0.1'])

    def initUI(self):
        # Layout are better for placing widgets
        layout = QtWidgets.QVBoxLayout()
        self.runButton = QtWidgets.QPushButton('Run')
        self.runButton.clicked.connect(self.callProgram)

        self.output = QtWidgets.QTextEdit()

        layout.addWidget(self.output)
        layout.addWidget(self.runButton)

        centralWidget = QtWidgets.QWidget()
        centralWidget.setLayout(layout)
        self.setCentralWidget(centralWidget)

        # QProcess object for external app
        self.process = QtCore.QProcess(self)
        # QProcess emits `readyRead` when there is data to be read
        self.process.readyRead.connect(self.dataReady)

        # Just to prevent accidentally running multiple times
        # Disable the button when process starts, and enable it when it finishes
        self.process.started.connect(lambda: self.runButton.setEnabled(False))
        self.process.finished.connect(lambda: self.runButton.setEnabled(True))

# Function Main Start


def main():
    app = QtWidgets.QApplication(sys.argv)
    ui = gui()
    ui.show()
    sys.exit(app.exec_())
# Function Main END


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

RealTime output from a subprogram to stdout of a pyQT Widget

2 Answers2

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