A non-blocking read on a subprocess.PIPE in Python

Question

I\'m using the subprocess module to start a subprocess and connect to its output stream (standard output). I want to be able to execute non-blocking reads on its standard ou

Answer 1

Use select & read(1).

import subprocess     #no new requirements
def readAllSoFar(proc, retVal=''): 
  while (select.select([proc.stdout],[],[],0)[0]!=[]):   
    retVal+=proc.stdout.read(1)
  return retVal
p = subprocess.Popen(['/bin/ls'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
while not p.poll():
  print (readAllSoFar(p))

For readline()-like:

lines = ['']
while not p.poll():
  lines = readAllSoFar(p, lines[-1]).split('\n')
  for a in range(len(lines)-1):
    print a
lines = readAllSoFar(p, lines[-1]).split('\n')
for a in range(len(lines)-1):
  print a