CODEWITHSUNDEEP
linuxshell
Shai Zarzewski
Shai Zarzewski

Reputation: 1698

python script in linux shell that checks if a command line writes into file

I'm writing a python script that print output into the screen (linux shell), and I'm printing it with colors. Is there a way to know if the output goes into a file or not?

Example:

script.py parms

this gives me good colored output in the shell

Now if I do this:

script.py parms > output.txt

when I open the file I see weird ASCII characters (the colors values), I've tried to open it in a few text editors (kate, gedit).

I want to do something like:

if goesIntoFile:
  print in black
else:
  print in color

How can I do it?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 49

Answers (1)

randomir
randomir

Reputation: 18697

You could use isatty() on your stdout to check if the standard output is a tty (terminal) device, or a file.

Check this script.py:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys
print sys.stdout.isatty()

When run:

$ python script.py
True
$ python script.py | cat
False

Also, you might want to check some of the color-output libraries which handle this for you, for example crayons uses the isatty approach above.

Upvotes: 3

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