Running Bash commands in Python

Question

On my local machine, I run a python script which contains this line

bashCommand = \"cwm --rdf test.rdf --ntriples > test.nt\"
os.system(bashCommand)
         


        

Answer 1

To run the command without a shell, pass the command as a list and implement the redirection in Python using [subprocess]:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import subprocess

with open('test.nt', 'wb', 0) as file:
    subprocess.check_call("cwm --rdf test.rdf --ntriples".split(),
                          stdout=file)

Note: no > test.nt at the end. stdout=file implements the redirection.

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To run the command using the shell in Python, pass the command as a string and enable shell=True:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import subprocess

subprocess.check_call("cwm --rdf test.rdf --ntriples > test.nt",
                      shell=True)

Here's the shell is responsible for the output redirection (> test.nt is in the command).

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To run a bash command that uses bashisms, specify the bash executable explicitly e.g., to emulate bash process substitution:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import subprocess

subprocess.check_call('program <(command) <(another-command)',
                      shell=True, executable='/bin/bash')