How to run a subprocess with Python, wait for it to exit and get the full stdout as a string?

Question

So I noticed subprocess.call while it waits for the command to finish before proceeding with the python script, I have no way of getting the stdout, except with subprocess.Popen. Are there any alternative function calls that would wait until it finishes? (I also tried Popen.wait)

NOTE: I'm trying to avoid os.system call

result = subprocess.Popen([commands...,                         self.tmpfile.path()], stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE) out, err = result.communicate() print out+"HIHIHI" 

my output:

HIHIHI 

NOTE: I am trying to run wine with this.

Answer 1

I am using the following construct, although you might want to avoid shell=True. This gives you the output and error message for any command, and the error code as well:

process = subprocess.Popen(cmd, shell=True,                            stdout=subprocess.PIPE,                             stderr=subprocess.PIPE)  # wait for the process to terminate out, err = process.communicate() errcode = process.returncode 

Answer 2

subprocess.check_output(...) 

calls the process, raises if its error code is nonzero, and otherwise returns its stdout. It's just a quick shorthand so you don't have to worry about PIPEs and things.