Subprocess.Popen: cloning stdout and stderr both to terminal and variables

Question

Is it possible to modify code below to have printout from 'stdout 'and 'stderr':

• printed on the terminal (in real time),
• and finally stored in outs and errs variables?

The code:

#!/usr/bin/python3
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

import subprocess

def run_cmd(command, cwd=None):
    p = subprocess.Popen(command, cwd=cwd, shell=False,
                         stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
                         stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
    outs, errs = p.communicate()
    rc = p.returncode
    outs = outs.decode('utf-8')
    errs = errs.decode('utf-8')

    return (rc, (outs, errs))

Thanks to @unutbu, special thanks for @j-f-sebastian, final function:

#!/usr/bin/python3
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-


import sys
from queue import Queue
from subprocess import PIPE, Popen
from threading import Thread


def read_output(pipe, funcs):
    for line in iter(pipe.readline, b''):
        for func in funcs:
            func(line.decode('utf-8'))
    pipe.close()


def write_output(get):
    for line in iter(get, None):
        sys.stdout.write(line)


def run_cmd(command, cwd=None, passthrough=True):
    outs, errs = None, None

    proc = Popen(
        command,
        cwd=cwd,
        shell=False,
        close_fds=True,
        stdout=PIPE,
        stderr=PIPE,
        bufsize=1
        )

    if passthrough:

        outs, errs = [], []

        q = Queue()

        stdout_thread = Thread(
            target=read_output, args=(proc.stdout, [q.put, outs.append])
            )

        stderr_thread = Thread(
            target=read_output, args=(proc.stderr, [q.put, errs.append])
            )

        writer_thread = Thread(
            target=write_output, args=(q.get,)
            )

        for t in (stdout_thread, stderr_thread, writer_thread):
            t.daemon = True
            t.start()

        proc.wait()

        for t in (stdout_thread, stderr_thread):
            t.join()

        q.put(None)

        outs = ' '.join(outs)
        errs = ' '.join(errs)

    else:

        outs, errs = proc.communicate()
        outs = '' if outs == None else outs.decode('utf-8')
        errs = '' if errs == None else errs.decode('utf-8')

    rc = proc.returncode

    return (rc, (outs, errs))

Answer 1

Here is another version for your run_cmd function using asyncio in Python 3.11:

import asyncio
import io
import sys
from subprocess import SubprocessError


# Maximum number of bytes to read at once from the 'asyncio.subprocess.PIPE'
_MAX_BUFFER_CHUNK_SIZE = 1024

async def run_cmd_async(command, cwd=None, check=False):
    stdout_buffer = io.BytesIO()
    stderr_buffer = io.BytesIO()
    process = await asyncio.subprocess.create_subprocess_exec(
        *command,
        cwd=cwd,
        stdout=asyncio.subprocess.PIPE,
        stderr=asyncio.subprocess.PIPE)

    async def write_stdout() -> None:
        assert process.stdout is not None
        while chunk := await process.stdout.read(_MAX_BUFFER_CHUNK_SIZE):
            stdout_buffer.write(chunk)
            print(chunk.decode(), end="", flush=True)

    async def write_stderr() -> None:
        assert process.stderr is not None
        while chunk := await process.stderr.read(_MAX_BUFFER_CHUNK_SIZE):
            stderr_buffer.write(chunk)
            print(chunk.decode(), file=sys.stderr, end="", flush=True)

    async with asyncio.TaskGroup() as task_group:
        task_group.create_task(write_stdout())
        task_group.create_task(write_stderr())

        exit_code = await process.wait()
        if check and exit_code != 0:
            raise SubprocessError(
                f"Command '{command}' returned non-zero exit status {exit_code}."
            )
    return exit_code, (stdout_buffer.getvalue().decode(),
                       stderr_buffer.getvalue().decode())


def run_cmd(command, cwd=None, check=False):
    return asyncio.run(run_cmd_async(command, cwd=cwd, check=check))

Answer 2

To stream live output (stdout and stderr) of a subprocess to the terminal, as well as to variables, you can spawn two threads to handle the streams concurrently.

Adapted from my more detailed answer:

import logging
from collections import deque
from concurrent.futures import ThreadPoolExecutor
from functools import partial
from subprocess import PIPE, CalledProcessError, CompletedProcess, Popen


def stream_command(
    args,
    *,
    stdout_handler=logging.info,
    stderr_handler=logging.error,
    check=True,
    text=True,
    stdout=PIPE,
    stderr=PIPE,
    **kwargs,
):
    """Mimic subprocess.run, while processing the command output in real time."""
    with Popen(args, text=text, stdout=stdout, stderr=stderr, **kwargs) as process:
        with ThreadPoolExecutor(2) as pool:  # two threads to handle the streams
            exhaust = partial(pool.submit, partial(deque, maxlen=0))
            exhaust(stdout_handler(line[:-1]) for line in process.stdout)
            exhaust(stderr_handler(line[:-1]) for line in process.stderr)
    retcode = process.poll()
    if check and retcode:
        raise CalledProcessError(retcode, process.args)
    return CompletedProcess(process.args, retcode)

Call with custom handlers:

outs, errs = [], []
def stdout_handler(line):
    outs.append(line)
    print(line)
def stderr_handler(line):
    errs.append(line)
    print(line)

stream_command(
    ["echo", "test"],
    stdout_handler=stdout_handler,
    stderr_handler=stderr_handler,
)
# test
print(outs)
# ['test']

Answer 3

To capture and display at the same time both stdout and stderr from a child process line by line in a single thread, you could use asynchronous I/O:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
import asyncio
import os
import sys
from asyncio.subprocess import PIPE

@asyncio.coroutine
def read_stream_and_display(stream, display):
    """Read from stream line by line until EOF, display, and capture the lines.

    """
    output = []
    while True:
        line = yield from stream.readline()
        if not line:
            break
        output.append(line)
        display(line) # assume it doesn't block
    return b''.join(output)

@asyncio.coroutine
def read_and_display(*cmd):
    """Capture cmd's stdout, stderr while displaying them as they arrive
    (line by line).

    """
    # start process
    process = yield from asyncio.create_subprocess_exec(*cmd,
            stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE)

    # read child's stdout/stderr concurrently (capture and display)
    try:
        stdout, stderr = yield from asyncio.gather(
            read_stream_and_display(process.stdout, sys.stdout.buffer.write),
            read_stream_and_display(process.stderr, sys.stderr.buffer.write))
    except Exception:
        process.kill()
        raise
    finally:
        # wait for the process to exit
        rc = yield from process.wait()
    return rc, stdout, stderr

# run the event loop
if os.name == 'nt':
    loop = asyncio.ProactorEventLoop() # for subprocess' pipes on Windows
    asyncio.set_event_loop(loop)
else:
    loop = asyncio.get_event_loop()
rc, *output = loop.run_until_complete(read_and_display(*cmd))
loop.close()

Answer 4

You could spawn threads to read the stdout and stderr pipes, write to a common queue, and append to lists. Then use a third thread to print items from the queue.

import time
import Queue
import sys
import threading
import subprocess
PIPE = subprocess.PIPE


def read_output(pipe, funcs):
    for line in iter(pipe.readline, ''):
        for func in funcs:
            func(line)
            # time.sleep(1)
    pipe.close()

def write_output(get):
    for line in iter(get, None):
        sys.stdout.write(line)

process = subprocess.Popen(
    ['random_print.py'], stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE, close_fds=True, bufsize=1)
q = Queue.Queue()
out, err = [], []
tout = threading.Thread(
    target=read_output, args=(process.stdout, [q.put, out.append]))
terr = threading.Thread(
    target=read_output, args=(process.stderr, [q.put, err.append]))
twrite = threading.Thread(target=write_output, args=(q.get,))
for t in (tout, terr, twrite):
    t.daemon = True
    t.start()
process.wait()
for t in (tout, terr):
    t.join()
q.put(None)
print(out)
print(err)

The reason for using the third thread -- instead of letting the first two threads both print directly to the terminal -- is to prevent both print statements from occurring concurrently, which can result in sometimes garbled text.

---

The above calls random_print.py, which prints to stdout and stderr at random:

import sys
import time
import random

for i in range(50):
    f = random.choice([sys.stdout,sys.stderr])
    f.write(str(i)+'\n')
    f.flush()
    time.sleep(0.1)

---

This solution borrows code and ideas from J. F. Sebastian, here.

---

Here is an alternative solution for Unix-like systems, using select.select:

import collections
import select
import fcntl
import os
import time
import Queue
import sys
import threading
import subprocess
PIPE = subprocess.PIPE

def make_async(fd):
    # https://stackoverflow.com/a/7730201/190597
    '''add the O_NONBLOCK flag to a file descriptor'''
    fcntl.fcntl(
        fd, fcntl.F_SETFL, fcntl.fcntl(fd, fcntl.F_GETFL) | os.O_NONBLOCK)

def read_async(fd):
    # https://stackoverflow.com/a/7730201/190597
    '''read some data from a file descriptor, ignoring EAGAIN errors'''
    # time.sleep(1)
    try:
        return fd.read()
    except IOError, e:
        if e.errno != errno.EAGAIN:
            raise e
        else:
            return ''

def write_output(fds, outmap):
    for fd in fds:
        line = read_async(fd)
        sys.stdout.write(line)
        outmap[fd.fileno()].append(line)

process = subprocess.Popen(
    ['random_print.py'], stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE, close_fds=True)

make_async(process.stdout)
make_async(process.stderr)
outmap = collections.defaultdict(list)
while True:
    rlist, wlist, xlist = select.select([process.stdout, process.stderr], [], [])
    write_output(rlist, outmap)
    if process.poll() is not None:
        write_output([process.stdout, process.stderr], outmap)
        break

fileno = {'stdout': process.stdout.fileno(),
          'stderr': process.stderr.fileno()}

print(outmap[fileno['stdout']])
print(outmap[fileno['stderr']])

This solution uses code and ideas from Adam Rosenfield's post, here.