Retrieving the output of subprocess.call()

Question

How can I get the output of a process run using subprocess.call()?

Passing a StringIO.StringIO object to stdout gives this error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/subprocess.py", line 444, in call
    return Popen(*popenargs, **kwargs).wait()
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/subprocess.py", line 588, in __init__
    errread, errwrite) = self._get_handles(stdin, stdout, stderr)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/subprocess.py", line 945, in _get_handles
    c2pwrite = stdout.fileno()
AttributeError: StringIO instance has no attribute 'fileno'
>>> 

Answer 1

If you have Python version >= 2.7, you can use subprocess.check_output which basically does exactly what you want (it returns standard output as string).

Simple example (linux version, see note):

import subprocess

print subprocess.check_output(["ping", "-c", "1", "8.8.8.8"])

Note that the ping command is using linux notation (-c for count). If you try this on Windows remember to change it to -n for same result.

As commented below you can find a more detailed explanation in this other answer.