Python Function to test ping

Question

I'm trying to create a function that I can call on a timed basis to check for good ping and return the result so I can update the on-screen display. I am new to python so I don't fully understand how to return a value or set a variable in a function.

Here is my code that works:

import os hostname = "google.com" response = os.system("ping -c 1 " + hostname) if response == 0:     pingstatus = "Network Active" else:     pingstatus = "Network Error" 

Here is my attempt at creating a function:

def check_ping():     hostname = "google.com"     response = os.system("ping -c 1 " + hostname)     # and then check the response...     if response == 0:         pingstatus = "Network Active"     else:         pingstatus = "Network Error" 

And here is how I display pingstatus:

label = font_status.render("%s" % pingstatus, 1, (0,0,0)) 

So what I am looking for is how to return pingstatus from the function. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

It looks like you want the return keyword

def check_ping():     hostname = "taylor"     response = os.system("ping -c 1 " + hostname)     # and then check the response...     if response == 0:         pingstatus = "Network Active"     else:         pingstatus = "Network Error"      return pingstatus 

You need to capture/'receive' the return value of the function(pingstatus) in a variable with something like:

pingstatus = check_ping() 

NOTE: ping -c is for Linux, for Windows use ping -n

Some info on python functions:

http://www.tutorialspoint.com/python/python_functions.htm

http://www.learnpython.org/en/Functions

It's probably worth going through a good introductory tutorial to Python, which will cover all the fundamentals. I recommend investigating Udacity.com and codeacademy.com

Answer 2

Here is a simplified function that returns a boolean and has no output pushed to stdout:

import subprocess, platform def pingOk(sHost):     try:         output = subprocess.check_output("ping -{} 1 {}".format('n' if platform.system().lower()=="windows" else 'c', sHost), shell=True)      except Exception, e:         return False      return True