How can we interact with OS shell using Python ? I want to run windows cmd commands via python. How can it be achieved ?
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1Related: Is it possible to use python as a shell replacement?Martijn Pieters– Martijn Pieters2013-02-15 11:54:52 +00:00Commented Feb 15, 2013 at 11:54
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7 Answers
The newer subprocess.check_output and similar commands are supposed to replace os.system. See this page for details. While I can't test this on Windows (because I don't have access to any Windows machines), the following should work:
from subprocess import check_output
check_output("dir C:", shell=True)
check_output returns a string of the output from your command. Alternatively, subprocess.call just runs the command and returns the status of the command (usually 0 if everything is okay).
Also note that, in python 3, that string output is now bytes output. If you want to change this into a string, you need something like
from subprocess import check_output
check_output("dir C:", shell=True).decode()
If necessary, you can tell it the kind of encoding your program outputs. The default is utf-8, which typically works fine, but other standard options are here.
Also note that @bluescorpion says in the comments that Windows 10 needs a trailing backslash, as in check_output("dir C:\\", shell=True). The double backslash is needed because \ is a special character in python, so it has to be escaped. (Also note that even prefixing the string with r doesn't help if \ is the very last character of the string — r"dir C:\" is a syntax error, though r"dir C:\ " is not.)
9 Comments
Bill N
This works in Windows 7. Thanks. It does return \r\n at the end of the string, so you might need to strip that out with a
[0:-2] substring.
Mike
Using
[0:-2] for that purpose makes me nervous. If anyone takes that code to apply it in a non-Windows context, they'll certainly change the obvious dir C: to ls or whatever. But they could easily fail to realize that [0:-2] should be changed to [0:-1]. I'd recommend .rstrip() instead, which would work on any platform (unless you want to capture other trailing whitespace), and also makes the reason behind the string alteration clearer.
Nevin Raj Victor
@Mikw: I have a windows command which is used for deployment.Just a single line of command. How can I call it from an external python3.4 script
blue scorpion
Works in Win 10 with a slight modification: check_output("dir C:\\", shell=True)
Mike
@codingbruh Yes. In fact (as I noted in a previous comment), I don't even have access to any windows machines. I use it routinely on macOS and various species of linux without any trouble. You just need to give it commands that the shell will understand — e.g.,
ls / instead of dir C:. |
You would use the os module system method.
You just put in the string form of the command, the return value is the windows enrivonment variable COMSPEC
For example:
os.system('python') opens up the windows command prompt and runs the python interpreter
2 Comments
Anonsage
Sidetip: Use
alt+prtscr to just get a screenshot of the active window. ;)
Igor
Thanks for this tip. Although documentation recommends using subprocess module, I find this more pythonic for simple tasks.
Refactoring of @srini-beerge's answer which gets the output and the return code
import subprocess
def run_win_cmd(cmd):
result = []
process = subprocess.Popen(cmd,
shell=True,
stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
for line in process.stdout:
result.append(line)
errcode = process.returncode
for line in result:
print(line)
if errcode is not None:
raise Exception('cmd %s failed, see above for details', cmd)
Comments
Simple Import os package and run below command.
import os
os.system("python test.py")
Comments
You can use the subprocess package with the code as below:
import subprocess
cmdCommand = "python test.py" #specify your cmd command
process = subprocess.Popen(cmdCommand.split(), stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
output, error = process.communicate()
print output
Comments
import subprocess
result = []
win_cmd = 'ipconfig'(curr_user,filename,ip_address)
process = subprocess.Popen(win_cmd,
shell=True,
stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
stderr=subprocess.PIPE )
for line in process.stdout:
print line
result.append(line)
errcode = process.returncode
for line in result:
print line
Comments
This worked for me, although you don't need to use import subprocess just in case you need to work with adb.
from tkinter import *
import os
# import subprocess
root = Tk()
root.title("Shutdown PC")
root.geometry("500x500")
def button():
os.system('timeout /T 10 /nobreak')
os.system('SHUTDOWN/s')
b = Button(root, text="SHUTDOWN PC", width=30, height=2, command = button)
b.pack()
root.mainloop()
