Python read from subprocess stdout and stderr separately while preserving order
I have a python subprocess that I'm trying to read output and error streams from. Currently I have it working, but I'm only able to read from stderr after I've finished reading from stdout. Here's what it looks like:
process = subprocess.Popen(command, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
stdout_iterator = iter(process.stdout.readline, b"")
stderr_iterator = iter(process.stderr.readline, b"")
for line in stdout_iterator:
# Do stuff with line
print line
for line in stderr_iterator:
# Do stuff with line
print line
As you can see, the stderr for loop can't start until the stdout loop completes. How can I modify this to be able to read from both in the correct order the lines come in?
To clarify: I still need to be able to tell whether a line came from stdout or stderr because they will be treated differently in my code.
Answer
The code in your question may deadlock if the child process produces enough output on stderr (~100KB on my Linux machine).
There is a communicate() method that allows to read from both stdout and stderr separately:
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
process = Popen(command, stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE)
output, err = process.communicate()
If you need to read the streams while the child process is still running then the portable solution is to use threads (not tested):
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
from threading import Thread
from Queue import Queue # Python 2
def reader(pipe, queue):
try:
with pipe:
for line in iter(pipe.readline, b''):
queue.put((pipe, line))
finally:
queue.put(None)
process = Popen(command, stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE, bufsize=1)
q = Queue()
Thread(target=reader, args=[process.stdout, q]).start()
Thread(target=reader, args=[process.stderr, q]).start()
for _ in range(2):
for source, line in iter(q.get, None):
print "%s: %s" % (source, line),
See: