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

EDIT: This implementation still blocks. Use J.F.Sebastian's answer instead.

I tried the top answer, but the additional risk and maintenance of thread code was worrisome.

Looking through the io module (and being limited to 2.6), I found BufferedReader. This is my threadless, non-blocking solution.

import io
from subprocess import PIPE, Popen

p = Popen(['myprogram.exe'], stdout=PIPE)

SLEEP_DELAY = 0.001

# Create an io.BufferedReader on the file descriptor for stdout
with io.open(p.stdout.fileno(), 'rb', closefd=False) as buffer:
  while p.poll() == None:
      time.sleep(SLEEP_DELAY)
      while '\n' in bufferedStdout.peek(bufferedStdout.buffer_size):
          line = buffer.readline()
          # do stuff with the line

  # Handle any remaining output after the process has ended
  while buffer.peek():
    line = buffer.readline()
    # do stuff with the line