Python popen command. Wait until the command is finished

python subprocess wait popen
michele picture michele · May 14, 2010 · Viewed 160k times · Source

I have a script where I launch with popen a shell command. The problem is that the script doesn't wait until that popen command is finished and go continues right away.

om_points = os.popen(command, "w")
.....

How can I tell to my Python script to wait until the shell command has finished?

Answer

unholysampler picture unholysampler · May 14, 2010

Depending on how you want to work your script you have two options. If you want the commands to block and not do anything while it is executing, you can just use subprocess.call.

#start and block until done
subprocess.call([data["om_points"], ">", diz['d']+"/points.xml"])

If you want to do things while it is executing or feed things into stdin, you can use communicate after the popen call.

#start and process things, then wait
p = subprocess.Popen([data["om_points"], ">", diz['d']+"/points.xml"])
print "Happens while running"
p.communicate() #now wait plus that you can send commands to process

As stated in the documentation, wait can deadlock, so communicate is advisable.

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