How can pipe data in python without cat command? [duplicate]

Question

Is there any way to write binary output to sys.stdout in Python 2.x? In Python 3.x, you can just use sys.stdout.buffer (or detach stdout, etc...), but I haven't been able to find any solutions for Python 2.5/2.6.

EDIT, Solution: From ChristopheD's link, below:

import sys

if sys.platform == "win32":
    import os, msvcrt
    msvcrt.setmode(sys.stdout.fileno(), os.O_BINARY)

EDIT: I'm trying to push a PDF file (in binary form) to stdout for serving up on a web server. When I try to write the file using sys.stdout.write, it adds all sorts of carriage returns to the binary stream that causes the PDF to render corrupt.

EDIT 2: For this project, I need to run on a Windows Server, unfortunately, so Linux solutions are out.

Simply Dummy Example (reading from a file on disk, instead of generating on the fly, just so we know that the generation code isn't the issue):

file = open('C:\\test.pdf','rb') 
pdfFile = file.read() 
sys.stdout.write(pdfFile)

Answer 1

Which platform are you on?

You could try this recipe if you're on Windows (the link suggests it's Windows specific anyway).

if sys.platform == "win32":
    import os, msvcrt
    msvcrt.setmode(sys.stdout.fileno(), os.O_BINARY)

There are some references on the web that there would/should be a function in Python 3.1 to reopen sys.stdout in binary mode but I don't really know if there's a better alternative then the above for Python 2.x.

Answer 2

You can use unbuffered mode: python -u script.py.

-u     Force  stdin,  stdout  and stderr to be totally unbuffered.
       On systems where it matters, also put stdin, stdout and stderr
       in binary mode.