Run shell command with input redirections from python 2.4?

Question

What I\'d like to achieve is the launch of the following shell command:

mysql -h hostAddress -u userName -p userPassword 
databaseName < fileName

Answer 1

The symbol < has this meaning (i. e. reading a file to stdin) only in shell. In Python you should use either of the following:

1) Read file contents in your process and push it to stdin of the child process:

fd = open(filename,  'rb')
try:
    subprocess.call(cmd, stdin=fd)
finally:
    fd.close()

2) Read file contents via shell (as you mentioned), but redirect stdin of your process accordingly:

# In file myprocess.py
subprocess.call(cmd, stdin=subprocess.PIPE)

# In shell command line
$ python myprocess.py < filename