summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/Doc/library/subprocess.rst
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'Doc/library/subprocess.rst')
-rw-r--r--Doc/library/subprocess.rst292
1 files changed, 172 insertions, 120 deletions
diff --git a/Doc/library/subprocess.rst b/Doc/library/subprocess.rst
index 36cbf3c..9a2f4de 100644
--- a/Doc/library/subprocess.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/subprocess.rst
@@ -25,160 +25,99 @@ modules and functions can be found in the following sections.
Using the :mod:`subprocess` Module
----------------------------------
-The recommended approach to invoking subprocesses is to use the following
-convenience functions for all use cases they can handle. For more advanced
-use cases, the underlying :class:`Popen` interface can be used directly.
+The recommended approach to invoking subprocesses is to use the :func:`run`
+function for all use cases it can handle. For more advanced use cases, the
+underlying :class:`Popen` interface can be used directly.
+The :func:`run` function was added in Python 3.5; if you need to retain
+compatibility with older versions, see the :ref:`call-function-trio` section.
-.. function:: call(args, *, stdin=None, stdout=None, stderr=None, shell=False, timeout=None)
+
+.. function:: run(args, *, stdin=None, input=None, stdout=None, stderr=None,\
+ shell=False, timeout=None, check=False)
Run the command described by *args*. Wait for command to complete, then
- return the :attr:`returncode` attribute.
+ return a :class:`CompletedProcess` instance.
The arguments shown above are merely the most common ones, described below
in :ref:`frequently-used-arguments` (hence the use of keyword-only notation
in the abbreviated signature). The full function signature is largely the
- same as that of the :class:`Popen` constructor - this function passes all
- supplied arguments other than *timeout* directly through to that interface.
+ same as that of the :class:`Popen` constructor - apart from *timeout*,
+ *input* and *check*, all the arguments to this function are passed through to
+ that interface.
- The *timeout* argument is passed to :meth:`Popen.wait`. If the timeout
- expires, the child process will be killed and then waited for again. The
+ This does not capture stdout or stderr by default. To do so, pass
+ :data:`PIPE` for the *stdout* and/or *stderr* arguments.
+
+ The *timeout* argument is passed to :meth:`Popen.communicate`. If the timeout
+ expires, the child process will be killed and waited for. The
:exc:`TimeoutExpired` exception will be re-raised after the child process
has terminated.
- Examples::
-
- >>> subprocess.call(["ls", "-l"])
- 0
-
- >>> subprocess.call("exit 1", shell=True)
- 1
-
- .. note::
-
- Do not use ``stdout=PIPE`` or ``stderr=PIPE`` with this
- function. The child process will block if it generates enough
- output to a pipe to fill up the OS pipe buffer as the pipes are
- not being read from.
-
- .. versionchanged:: 3.3
- *timeout* was added.
-
-
-.. function:: check_call(args, *, stdin=None, stdout=None, stderr=None, shell=False, timeout=None)
-
- Run command with arguments. Wait for command to complete. If the return
- code was zero then return, otherwise raise :exc:`CalledProcessError`. The
- :exc:`CalledProcessError` object will have the return code in the
- :attr:`~CalledProcessError.returncode` attribute.
-
- The arguments shown above are merely the most common ones, described below
- in :ref:`frequently-used-arguments` (hence the use of keyword-only notation
- in the abbreviated signature). The full function signature is largely the
- same as that of the :class:`Popen` constructor - this function passes all
- supplied arguments other than *timeout* directly through to that interface.
+ The *input* argument is passed to :meth:`Popen.communicate` and thus to the
+ subprocess's stdin. If used it must be a byte sequence, or a string if
+ ``universal_newlines=True``. When used, the internal :class:`Popen` object
+ is automatically created with ``stdin=PIPE``, and the *stdin* argument may
+ not be used as well.
- The *timeout* argument is passed to :meth:`Popen.wait`. If the timeout
- expires, the child process will be killed and then waited for again. The
- :exc:`TimeoutExpired` exception will be re-raised after the child process
- has terminated.
+ If *check* is True, and the process exits with a non-zero exit code, a
+ :exc:`CalledProcessError` exception will be raised. Attributes of that
+ exception hold the arguments, the exit code, and stdout and stderr if they
+ were captured.
Examples::
- >>> subprocess.check_call(["ls", "-l"])
- 0
+ >>> subprocess.run(["ls", "-l"]) # doesn't capture output
+ CompletedProcess(args=['ls', '-l'], returncode=0)
- >>> subprocess.check_call("exit 1", shell=True)
+ >>> subprocess.run("exit 1", shell=True, check=True)
Traceback (most recent call last):
- ...
+ ...
subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command 'exit 1' returned non-zero exit status 1
- .. note::
+ >>> subprocess.run(["ls", "-l", "/dev/null"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
+ CompletedProcess(args=['ls', '-l', '/dev/null'], returncode=0,
+ stdout=b'crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 1, 3 Jan 23 16:23 /dev/null\n')
- Do not use ``stdout=PIPE`` or ``stderr=PIPE`` with this
- function. The child process will block if it generates enough
- output to a pipe to fill up the OS pipe buffer as the pipes are
- not being read from.
+ .. versionadded:: 3.5
- .. versionchanged:: 3.3
- *timeout* was added.
+.. class:: CompletedProcess
+ The return value from :func:`run`, representing a process that has finished.
-.. function:: check_output(args, *, input=None, stdin=None, stderr=None, shell=False, universal_newlines=False, timeout=None)
+ .. attribute:: args
- Run command with arguments and return its output.
+ The arguments used to launch the process. This may be a list or a string.
- If the return code was non-zero it raises a :exc:`CalledProcessError`. The
- :exc:`CalledProcessError` object will have the return code in the
- :attr:`~CalledProcessError.returncode` attribute and any output in the
- :attr:`~CalledProcessError.output` attribute.
+ .. attribute:: returncode
- The arguments shown above are merely the most common ones, described below
- in :ref:`frequently-used-arguments` (hence the use of keyword-only notation
- in the abbreviated signature). The full function signature is largely the
- same as that of the :class:`Popen` constructor - this functions passes all
- supplied arguments other than *input* and *timeout* directly through to
- that interface. In addition, *stdout* is not permitted as an argument, as
- it is used internally to collect the output from the subprocess.
+ Exit status of the child process. Typically, an exit status of 0 indicates
+ that it ran successfully.
- The *timeout* argument is passed to :meth:`Popen.wait`. If the timeout
- expires, the child process will be killed and then waited for again. The
- :exc:`TimeoutExpired` exception will be re-raised after the child process
- has terminated.
+ A negative value ``-N`` indicates that the child was terminated by signal
+ ``N`` (POSIX only).
- The *input* argument is passed to :meth:`Popen.communicate` and thus to the
- subprocess's stdin. If used it must be a byte sequence, or a string if
- ``universal_newlines=True``. When used, the internal :class:`Popen` object
- is automatically created with ``stdin=PIPE``, and the *stdin* argument may
- not be used as well.
+ .. attribute:: stdout
- Examples::
+ Captured stdout from the child process. A bytes sequence, or a string if
+ :func:`run` was called with ``universal_newlines=True``. None if stdout
+ was not captured.
- >>> subprocess.check_output(["echo", "Hello World!"])
- b'Hello World!\n'
+ If you ran the process with ``stderr=subprocess.STDOUT``, stdout and
+ stderr will be combined in this attribute, and :attr:`stderr` will be
+ None.
- >>> subprocess.check_output(["echo", "Hello World!"], universal_newlines=True)
- 'Hello World!\n'
+ .. attribute:: stderr
- >>> subprocess.check_output(["sed", "-e", "s/foo/bar/"],
- ... input=b"when in the course of fooman events\n")
- b'when in the course of barman events\n'
+ Captured stderr from the child process. A bytes sequence, or a string if
+ :func:`run` was called with ``universal_newlines=True``. None if stderr
+ was not captured.
- >>> subprocess.check_output("exit 1", shell=True)
- Traceback (most recent call last):
- ...
- subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command 'exit 1' returned non-zero exit status 1
+ .. method:: check_returncode()
- By default, this function will return the data as encoded bytes. The actual
- encoding of the output data may depend on the command being invoked, so the
- decoding to text will often need to be handled at the application level.
+ If :attr:`returncode` is non-zero, raise a :exc:`CalledProcessError`.
- This behaviour may be overridden by setting *universal_newlines* to
- ``True`` as described below in :ref:`frequently-used-arguments`.
-
- To also capture standard error in the result, use
- ``stderr=subprocess.STDOUT``::
-
- >>> subprocess.check_output(
- ... "ls non_existent_file; exit 0",
- ... stderr=subprocess.STDOUT,
- ... shell=True)
- 'ls: non_existent_file: No such file or directory\n'
-
- .. note::
-
- Do not use ``stdout=PIPE`` or ``stderr=PIPE`` with this
- function. The child process will block if it generates enough
- output to a pipe to fill up the OS pipe buffer as the pipes are
- not being read from.
-
- .. versionadded:: 3.1
-
- .. versionchanged:: 3.3
- *timeout* was added.
-
- .. versionchanged:: 3.4
- *input* was added.
+ .. versionadded:: 3.5
.. data:: DEVNULL
@@ -225,11 +164,22 @@ use cases, the underlying :class:`Popen` interface can be used directly.
.. attribute:: output
- Output of the child process if this exception is raised by
+ Output of the child process if it was captured by :func:`run` or
:func:`check_output`. Otherwise, ``None``.
+ .. attribute:: stdout
+
+ Alias for output, for symmetry with :attr:`stderr`.
+
+ .. attribute:: stderr
+
+ Stderr output of the child process if it was captured by :func:`run`.
+ Otherwise, ``None``.
+
.. versionadded:: 3.3
+ .. versionchanged:: 3.5
+ *stdout* and *stderr* attributes added
.. exception:: CalledProcessError
@@ -246,9 +196,20 @@ use cases, the underlying :class:`Popen` interface can be used directly.
.. attribute:: output
- Output of the child process if this exception is raised by
+ Output of the child process if it was captured by :func:`run` or
:func:`check_output`. Otherwise, ``None``.
+ .. attribute:: stdout
+
+ Alias for output, for symmetry with :attr:`stderr`.
+
+ .. attribute:: stderr
+
+ Stderr output of the child process if it was captured by :func:`run`.
+ Otherwise, ``None``.
+
+ .. versionchanged:: 3.5
+ *stdout* and *stderr* attributes added
.. _frequently-used-arguments:
@@ -635,6 +596,7 @@ Instances of the :class:`Popen` class have the following methods:
must be bytes or, if *universal_newlines* was ``True``, a string.
:meth:`communicate` returns a tuple ``(stdout_data, stderr_data)``.
+ The data will be bytes or, if *universal_newlines* was ``True``, strings.
Note that if you want to send data to the process's stdin, you need to create
the Popen object with ``stdin=PIPE``. Similarly, to get anything other than
@@ -851,6 +813,96 @@ The :mod:`subprocess` module exposes the following constants.
This flag is ignored if :data:`CREATE_NEW_CONSOLE` is specified.
+.. _call-function-trio:
+
+Older high-level API
+--------------------
+
+Prior to Python 3.5, these three functions comprised the high level API to
+subprocess. You can now use :func:`run` in many cases, but lots of existing code
+calls these functions.
+
+.. function:: call(args, *, stdin=None, stdout=None, stderr=None, shell=False, timeout=None)
+
+ Run the command described by *args*. Wait for command to complete, then
+ return the :attr:`returncode` attribute.
+
+ This is equivalent to::
+
+ run(...).returncode
+
+ (except that the *input* and *check* parameters are not supported)
+
+ .. note::
+
+ Do not use ``stdout=PIPE`` or ``stderr=PIPE`` with this
+ function. The child process will block if it generates enough
+ output to a pipe to fill up the OS pipe buffer as the pipes are
+ not being read from.
+
+ .. versionchanged:: 3.3
+ *timeout* was added.
+
+.. function:: check_call(args, *, stdin=None, stdout=None, stderr=None, shell=False, timeout=None)
+
+ Run command with arguments. Wait for command to complete. If the return
+ code was zero then return, otherwise raise :exc:`CalledProcessError`. The
+ :exc:`CalledProcessError` object will have the return code in the
+ :attr:`~CalledProcessError.returncode` attribute.
+
+ This is equivalent to::
+
+ run(..., check=True)
+
+ (except that the *input* parameter is not supported)
+
+ .. note::
+
+ Do not use ``stdout=PIPE`` or ``stderr=PIPE`` with this
+ function. The child process will block if it generates enough
+ output to a pipe to fill up the OS pipe buffer as the pipes are
+ not being read from.
+
+ .. versionchanged:: 3.3
+ *timeout* was added.
+
+
+.. function:: check_output(args, *, input=None, stdin=None, stderr=None, shell=False, universal_newlines=False, timeout=None)
+
+ Run command with arguments and return its output.
+
+ If the return code was non-zero it raises a :exc:`CalledProcessError`. The
+ :exc:`CalledProcessError` object will have the return code in the
+ :attr:`~CalledProcessError.returncode` attribute and any output in the
+ :attr:`~CalledProcessError.output` attribute.
+
+ This is equivalent to::
+
+ run(..., check=True, stdout=PIPE).stdout
+
+ By default, this function will return the data as encoded bytes. The actual
+ encoding of the output data may depend on the command being invoked, so the
+ decoding to text will often need to be handled at the application level.
+
+ This behaviour may be overridden by setting *universal_newlines* to
+ ``True`` as described above in :ref:`frequently-used-arguments`.
+
+ To also capture standard error in the result, use
+ ``stderr=subprocess.STDOUT``::
+
+ >>> subprocess.check_output(
+ ... "ls non_existent_file; exit 0",
+ ... stderr=subprocess.STDOUT,
+ ... shell=True)
+ 'ls: non_existent_file: No such file or directory\n'
+
+ .. versionadded:: 3.1
+
+ .. versionchanged:: 3.3
+ *timeout* was added.
+
+ .. versionchanged:: 3.4
+ *input* was added.
.. _subprocess-replacements: