How to call a system command with flexibility on Windows

[Nicolas Fleury]

Hi everyone,
I have a hard time trying to call a system command with the following
capability on Windows:
- Redirection of stdout and stderr.
- Have the return code.

The documentation seems to say it's only possible on Unix, have I missed
something. Thx for your help.

Nicolas

 

[Peter Hansen]

I have a hard time trying to call a system command with the following
capability on Windows:
- Redirection of stdout and stderr.
- Have the return code.

The documentation seems to say it's only possible on Unix, have I missed
something. Thx for your help.

It can be done on Windows, although at the very least you cannot redirect
stderr properly from the command line on Win98.... not sure about other
issues.

I'm pretty sure return codes are available with os.system() under Windows,
but I rarely use them and forget any relevant details.

-Peter

 

[Francis Avila]

It can be done on Windows, although at the very least you cannot redirect
stderr properly from the command line on Win98.... not sure about other
issues.

Win98 is particularly bad:#output snipped
0 #return codeBad command or file name
0

 

[Mark Hammond]

Hi everyone,
I have a hard time trying to call a system command with the
following capability on Windows:
- Redirection of stdout and stderr.
- Have the return code.

The documentation seems to say it's only possible on Unix, have I missed
something. Thx for your help.

Some, if not all of the popen functions on Windows will return the exit
code of the program when closing the last returned handle. I'm afraid I
have no time to check the docs or find sample code, but it does work

Mark.

 

[Mark McEahern]

Some, if not all of the popen functions on Windows will return the exit
code of the program when closing the last returned handle. I'm afraid I
have no time to check the docs or find sample code, but it does work

I believe os.popen does on both cygwin and plain windows; e.g.,

cmd = 'some command'
stdout = os.popen(cmd)
print stdout.read()
exitCode = stdout.close()
if exitCode:
print '%s failed, this probably says why:\n%s' % (cmd, stdout)

Although I suppose spelling it "stdout" is misleading--doesn't popen
return stdout/stderr combined?

Cheers,

// m