how to bail if stdin is empty

[Jon Schull]

I want to write a filter that will take input from files on the
command line and/or from stdin.

But if nothing has been piped to stdin, I don't want my program to
hang--I want it to do something else.

This is standard behavior for pipeable-programs I believe, but I can't
figure out how to do it...neither by reading from stdin nor by using
the fileinput module.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Jeff Epler]

You can test whether stdin is a "terminal", and act accordingly.

$ ./tt.py
Standard input is a terminal. Aborting!
$ ./tt.py < /dev/null
Standard input is a file. Doing something.

#!/usr/bin/env python

import os
if os.isatty(0):
print "Standard input is a terminal. Aborting!"
else:
print "Standard input is a file. Doing something."

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[Antoon Pardon]

I want to write a filter that will take input from files on the
command line and/or from stdin.

But if nothing has been piped to stdin, I don't want my program to
hang--I want it to do something else.

This is standard behavior for pipeable-programs I believe,

No it is not. Standard behaviour for filters (on unix that is)
is to use standard input if no file arguments are given.

If you start such a program without arguments and not connected
to another programs with a pipe, such a program will hang and
wait for user input from the keyboard.