I am trying to get the output of a command by doing ssh on a remote server using below command.
os.system('ssh user@host " ksh .profile; cd dir; find . -type f |wc -l"')
Output of this command is 14549 0
why is there a zero in the output ? is there any way of storing the output in variable or list ? I have tried assigning output to a variable and a list too but i am getting only 0 in the variable. I am using python 2.7.3.
There are many good SO links on this one. try Running shell command from Python and capturing the output or Assign output of os.system to a variable and prevent it from being displayed on the screen for starters. In short
import subprocess
direct_output = subprocess.check_output('ls', shell=True) #could be anything here.
The shell=True flag should be used with caution:
From the docs: Warning
Invoking the system shell with shell=True can be a security hazard if combined with untrusted input. See the warning under Frequently Used Arguments for details.
See for much more info: http://docs.python.org/2/library/subprocess.html
you can use os.popen().read()
import os
out = os.popen('date').read()
print out
Tue Oct 3 10:48:10 PDT 2017
To add to Paul's answer (using subprocess.check_output):
I slightly rewrote it to work easier with commands that can throw errors (e.g. calling "git status" in a non-git directory will throw return code 128 and a CalledProcessError)
Here's my working Python 2.7 example:
import subprocess
class MyProcessHandler( object ):
# *********** constructor
def __init__( self ):
# return code saving
self.retcode = 0
# ************ modified copy of subprocess.check_output()
def check_output2( self, *popenargs, **kwargs ):
# open process and get returns, remember return code
pipe = subprocess.PIPE
process = subprocess.Popen( stdout = pipe, stderr = pipe, *popenargs, **kwargs )
output, unused_err = process.communicate( )
retcode = process.poll( )
self.retcode = retcode
# return standard output or error output
if retcode == 0:
return output
else:
return unused_err
# call it like this
my_call = "git status"
mph = MyProcessHandler( )
out = mph.check_output2( my_call )
print "process returned code", mph.retcode
print "output:"
print out
If you are calling os.system() in an interactive shell, os.system() prints the standard output of the command ('14549', the wc -l output), and then the interpreter prints the result of the function call itself (0, a possibly unreliable exit code from the command). An example with a simpler command:
Python 3.3.2 (v3.3.2:d047928ae3f6, May 16 2013, 00:06:53) [MSC v.1600 64 bit (AMD64)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import os
>>> os.system("echo X")
X
0
>>>
subprocessmodule instead ofos.system.