Python – subprocess.check_output return code

pythonsubprocess

I am using:

grepOut = subprocess.check_output("grep " + search + " tmp", shell=True)

To run a terminal command, I know that I can use a try/except to catch the error but how can I get the value of the error code?

I found this on the official documentation:

 exception subprocess.CalledProcessError

    Exception raised when a process run by check_call() or check_output() returns a non-zero exit status.

    returncode

        Exit status of the child process.

But there are no examples given and Google was of no help.

Best Answer

You can get the error code and results from the exception that is raised.

This can be done through the fields returncode and output.

For example:

import subprocess

try:
    grepOut = subprocess.check_output("grep " + "test" + " tmp", shell=True)                       
except subprocess.CalledProcessError as grepexc:                                                                                                   
    print("error code", grepexc.returncode, grepexc.output)

Related Solutions

Python – Using module ‘subprocess’ with timeout

I don't know much about the low level details; but, given that in python 2.6 the API offers the ability to wait for threads and terminate processes, what about running the process in a separate thread?

import subprocess, threading

class Command(object):
    def __init__(self, cmd):
        self.cmd = cmd
        self.process = None

    def run(self, timeout):
        def target():
            print 'Thread started'
            self.process = subprocess.Popen(self.cmd, shell=True)
            self.process.communicate()
            print 'Thread finished'

        thread = threading.Thread(target=target)
        thread.start()

        thread.join(timeout)
        if thread.is_alive():
            print 'Terminating process'
            self.process.terminate()
            thread.join()
        print self.process.returncode

command = Command("echo 'Process started'; sleep 2; echo 'Process finished'")
command.run(timeout=3)
command.run(timeout=1)

The output of this snippet in my machine is:

Thread started
Process started
Process finished
Thread finished
0
Thread started
Process started
Terminating process
Thread finished
-15

where it can be seen that, in the first execution, the process finished correctly (return code 0), while the in the second one the process was terminated (return code -15).

I haven't tested in windows; but, aside from updating the example command, I think it should work since I haven't found in the documentation anything that says that thread.join or process.terminate is not supported.

Python – Get exit code and stderr from subprocess call

Try this version:

import subprocess
try:
    output = subprocess.check_output(
        cmnd, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT, shell=True, timeout=3,
        universal_newlines=True)
except subprocess.CalledProcessError as exc:
    print("Status : FAIL", exc.returncode, exc.output)
else:
    print("Output: \n{}\n".format(output))

This way you will print the output only if the call was successful. In case of a CalledProcessError you print the return code and the output.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Python – Using module ‘subprocess’ with timeout

Python – Get exit code and stderr from subprocess call

Related Topic