How to kill an executable that was launched from within a Python script

Question

I am writing a Python script that requires the use of an executable that occasionally gets stuck in an infinite loop. When stuck in this loop, the executable spits out the same line of text to standard out. This I intend to catch and once I do, kill the executable. When I run this script manually I can just use CTRLC.

What is the correct way to programmatically kill off the executable from within the Python script? I am using Python 2.7, yet I am also curious as to the 3.x solution. I am using an os.system() call.

Possible duplicate of [Kill a running subprocess call](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16866602/kill-a-running-subprocess-call) — Aran-Fey, Jan 10 '18 at 18:12
Could you give us a code snippet of your code so we know what we're working with here. — Stefan Collier, Jan 10 '18 at 18:23

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 10 '18 at 18:44

You could attempt to catch the SIGINT close all your subprocess instances then do a system exit.

#!/usr/bin/env python
import signal
import sys
import subprocess

p = subprocess.Popen(...)

# define how to handle CTRL+C
def signal_handler(signal, frame):
    print('You pressed Ctrl+C!')
    p.kill()
    sys.exit(0)

# Tell it to handle CTRL+C
signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, signal_handler)

How to kill an executable that was launched from within a Python script

1 Answers1