Best command for running shell command

[Donald Duck]

I'm a little bit confused about what is the best way to run a shell command,
if I want to run a command like

xxxxxx -a -b > yyyyyy

where I'm not interested in the output, I only want to make sure that the
command was executed OK. How should I invoke this (in a Unix/linux
environment)?

The command module seem to give the resulting output and the various popen
commands seem to be similar.

 

[Roy Smith]

I'm a little bit confused about what is the best way to run a shell command,
if I want to run a command like

xxxxxx -a -b > yyyyyy

where I'm not interested in the output, I only want to make sure that the
command was executed OK. How should I invoke this (in a Unix/linux
environment)?

The most straight-forward way would be:

import os
status = os.system ("xxxxxx -a -b > yyyyyy")
if status == 0:
print "it worked"
else:
print "it failed"

You might also want to look at the new (in 2.4) subprocess module.

 

[Thomas Nelson]

Yes, I highly recommend the subprocess module. subprocess.call() can
do almost anything you want to do, and the options are all pretty
intuitive Whenever I need to write quick scripts for myself, it's what
I use.

THN

 

[iapain]

where I'm not interested in the output, I only want to make sure that the

command was executed OK. How should I invoke this (in a Unix/linux
environment)?

Remember few things about executing program within python
1. Create a subprocess or child process and execute it.
2. You should use "Timeout stratagy" i.e your execution took more than
provided time then timeout this process. In linux/unix you may use
singnal alarm to implement it.

Best!