commands

Execute shell commands via os.popen() and return status, output.

Interface summary:

import commands

outtext = commands.getoutput(cmd) (exitstatus, outtext) = commands.getstatusoutput(cmd) outtext = commands.getstatus(file) # returns output of “ls -ld file”

A trailing newline is removed from the output string.

Encapsulates the basic operation:

pipe = os.popen(‘{ ‘ + cmd + ‘; } 2>&1’, ‘r’) text = pipe.read() sts = pipe.close()

[Note: it would be nice to add functions to interpret the exit status.]

Functions

getoutput(cmd)	Return output (stdout or stderr) of executing cmd in a shell.
getstatus(file)	Return output of “ls -ld <file>” in a string.
getstatusoutput(cmd)	Return (status, output) of executing cmd in a shell.
mk2arg(head, x)
mkarg(x)