Using Subprocess to Run Python Script on Windows

Using subprocess to run Python script on Windows

Just found sys.executable - the full path to the current Python executable, which can be used to run the script (instead of relying on the shbang, which obviously doesn't work on Windows)

import sys
import subprocess

theproc = subprocess.Popen([sys.executable, "myscript.py"])
theproc.communicate()

Run Python script within Python by using `subprocess.Popen` in real time

Last night I've set out to do this using a pipe:

import os
import subprocess

with open("test2", "w") as f:
    f.write("""import time
print('start')
time.sleep(2)
print('done')""")

(readend, writeend) = os.pipe()

p = subprocess.Popen(['python3', '-u', 'test2'], stdout=writeend, bufsize=0)
still_open = True
output = ""
output_buf = os.read(readend, 1).decode()
while output_buf:
    print(output_buf, end="")
    output += output_buf
    if still_open and p.poll() is not None:
        os.close(writeend)
        still_open = False
    output_buf = os.read(readend, 1).decode()

Forcing buffering out of the picture and reading one character at the time (to make sure we do not block writes from the process having filled a buffer), closing the writing end when process finishes to make sure read catches the EOF correctly. Having looked at the subprocess though that turned out to be a bit of an overkill. With PIPE you get most of that for free and I ended with this which seems to work fine (call read as many times as necessary to keep emptying the pipe) with just this and assuming the process finished, you do not have to worry about polling it and/or making sure the write end of the pipe is closed to correctly detect EOF and get out of the loop:

p = subprocess.Popen(['python3', '-u', 'test2'],
                     stdout=subprocess.PIPE, bufsize=1,
                     universal_newlines=True)
output = ""
output_buf = p.stdout.readline()
while output_buf:
    print(output_buf, end="")
    output += output_buf
    output_buf = p.stdout.readline()

This is a bit less "real-time" as it is basically line buffered.

Note: I've added -u to you Python call, as you need to also make sure your called process' buffering does not get in the way.

Running a shell script using Subprocess in Python does not produce output

The simple and straightforward fix is to not use bare Popen for this.

You also don't need a shell to run a subprocess; if the subprocess is a shell script, that subprocess itself will be a shell, but you don't need the help of the shell to run that script.

proc = subprocess.run(
    ['km/example/example1/source/test.sh'],
    check=True, capture_output=True, text=True)
out = proc.stdout

If you really need to use Popen, you need to understand its processing model. But if you are just trying to get the job done, the simple answer is don't use Popen.

The error message actually looks like you are on Windows, and it tries to run km via cmd which thinks the slashes are option separators, not directory separators. Removing the shell=True avoids this complication, and just starts a process with the requested name. (This of course still requires that the file exists in the relative file name you are specifying. Perhaps see also What exactly is current working directory? and also perhaps switch to native Windows backslashes, with an r'...' string to prevent Python from trying to interpret the backslashes.)

Launch a python script from another script, with parameters in subprocess argument

The subprocess library is interpreting all of your arguments, including demo_oled_v01.py as a single argument to python. That's why python is complaining that it cannot locate a file with that name. Try running it as:

p = subprocess.Popen(['python', 'demo_oled_v01.py', '--display',
'ssd1351', '--width', '128', '--height', '128', '--interface', 'spi',
'--gpio-data-command', '20'])

See more information on Popen here.

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