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

Here is my code, used to catch every output from subprocess ASAP, including partial lines. It pumps at same time and stdout and stderr in almost correct order.

Tested and correctly worked on Python 2.7 linux & windows.

#!/usr/bin/python
#
# Runner with stdout/stderr catcher
#
from sys import argv
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
import os, io
from threading import Thread
import Queue
def __main__():
    if (len(argv) > 1) and (argv[-1] == "-sub-"):
        import time, sys
        print "Application runned!"
        time.sleep(2)
        print "Slept 2 second"
        time.sleep(1)
        print "Slept 1 additional second",
        time.sleep(2)
        sys.stderr.write("Stderr output after 5 seconds")
        print "Eol on stdin"
        sys.stderr.write("Eol on stderr\n")
        time.sleep(1)
        print "Wow, we have end of work!",
    else:
        os.environ["PYTHONUNBUFFERED"]="1"
        try:
            p = Popen( argv + ["-sub-"],
                       bufsize=0, # line-buffered
                       stdin=PIPE, stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE )
        except WindowsError, W:
            if W.winerror==193:
                p = Popen( argv + ["-sub-"],
                           shell=True, # Try to run via shell
                           bufsize=0, # line-buffered
                           stdin=PIPE, stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE )
            else:
                raise
        inp = Queue.Queue()
        sout = io.open(p.stdout.fileno(), 'rb', closefd=False)
        serr = io.open(p.stderr.fileno(), 'rb', closefd=False)
        def Pump(stream, category):
            queue = Queue.Queue()
            def rdr():
                while True:
                    buf = stream.read1(8192)
                    if len(buf)>0:
                        queue.put( buf )
                    else:
                        queue.put( None )
                        return
            def clct():
                active = True
                while active:
                    r = queue.get()
                    try:
                        while True:
                            r1 = queue.get(timeout=0.005)
                            if r1 is None:
                                active = False
                                break
                            else:
                                r += r1
                    except Queue.Empty:
                        pass
                    inp.put( (category, r) )
            for tgt in [rdr, clct]:
                th = Thread(target=tgt)
                th.setDaemon(True)
                th.start()
        Pump(sout, 'stdout')
        Pump(serr, 'stderr')

        while p.poll() is None:
            # App still working
            try:
                chan,line = inp.get(timeout = 1.0)
                if chan=='stdout':
                    print "STDOUT>>", line, "<?<"
                elif chan=='stderr':
                    print " ERROR==", line, "=?="
            except Queue.Empty:
                pass
        print "Finish"

if __name__ == '__main__':
    __main__()

Answer 2

This is a example to run interactive command in subprocess, and the stdout is interactive by using pseudo terminal. You can refer to: https://stackoverflow.com/a/43012138/3555925

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

import os
import sys
import select
import termios
import tty
import pty
from subprocess import Popen

command = 'bash'
# command = 'docker run -it --rm centos /bin/bash'.split()

# save original tty setting then set it to raw mode
old_tty = termios.tcgetattr(sys.stdin)
tty.setraw(sys.stdin.fileno())

# open pseudo-terminal to interact with subprocess
master_fd, slave_fd = pty.openpty()

# use os.setsid() make it run in a new process group, or bash job control will not be enabled
p = Popen(command,
          preexec_fn=os.setsid,
          stdin=slave_fd,
          stdout=slave_fd,
          stderr=slave_fd,
          universal_newlines=True)

while p.poll() is None:
    r, w, e = select.select([sys.stdin, master_fd], [], [])
    if sys.stdin in r:
        d = os.read(sys.stdin.fileno(), 10240)
        os.write(master_fd, d)
    elif master_fd in r:
        o = os.read(master_fd, 10240)
        if o:
            os.write(sys.stdout.fileno(), o)

# restore tty settings back
termios.tcsetattr(sys.stdin, termios.TCSADRAIN, old_tty)

Answer 3

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

Answer 4

Disclaimer: this works only for tornado

You can do this by setting the fd to be nonblocking and then use ioloop to register callbacks. I have packaged this in an egg called tornado_subprocess and you can install it via PyPI:

easy_install tornado_subprocess

now you can do something like this:

import tornado_subprocess
import tornado.ioloop

    def print_res( status, stdout, stderr ) :
    print status, stdout, stderr
    if status == 0:
        print "OK:"
        print stdout
    else:
        print "ERROR:"
        print stderr

t = tornado_subprocess.Subprocess( print_res, timeout=30, args=[ "cat", "/etc/passwd" ] )
t.start()
tornado.ioloop.IOLoop.instance().start()

you can also use it with a RequestHandler

class MyHandler(tornado.web.RequestHandler):
    def on_done(self, status, stdout, stderr):
        self.write( stdout )
        self.finish()

    @tornado.web.asynchronous
    def get(self):
        t = tornado_subprocess.Subprocess( self.on_done, timeout=30, args=[ "cat", "/etc/passwd" ] )
        t.start()

Answer 5

Adding this answer here since it provides ability to set non-blocking pipes on Windows and Unix.

All the ctypes details are thanks to @techtonik's answer.

There is a slightly modified version to be used both on Unix and Windows systems.

• Python3 compatible (only minor change needed).
• Includes posix version, and defines exception to use for either.

This way you can use the same function and exception for Unix and Windows code.

# pipe_non_blocking.py (module)
"""
Example use:

    p = subprocess.Popen(
            command,
            stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
            )

    pipe_non_blocking_set(p.stdout.fileno())

    try:
        data = os.read(p.stdout.fileno(), 1)
    except PortableBlockingIOError as ex:
        if not pipe_non_blocking_is_error_blocking(ex):
            raise ex
"""


__all__ = (
    "pipe_non_blocking_set",
    "pipe_non_blocking_is_error_blocking",
    "PortableBlockingIOError",
    )

import os


if os.name == "nt":
    def pipe_non_blocking_set(fd):
        # Constant could define globally but avoid polluting the name-space
        # thanks to: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/34504970
        import msvcrt

        from ctypes import windll, byref, wintypes, WinError, POINTER
        from ctypes.wintypes import HANDLE, DWORD, BOOL

        LPDWORD = POINTER(DWORD)

        PIPE_NOWAIT = wintypes.DWORD(0x00000001)

        def pipe_no_wait(pipefd):
            SetNamedPipeHandleState = windll.kernel32.SetNamedPipeHandleState
            SetNamedPipeHandleState.argtypes = [HANDLE, LPDWORD, LPDWORD, LPDWORD]
            SetNamedPipeHandleState.restype = BOOL

            h = msvcrt.get_osfhandle(pipefd)

            res = windll.kernel32.SetNamedPipeHandleState(h, byref(PIPE_NOWAIT), None, None)
            if res == 0:
                print(WinError())
                return False
            return True

        return pipe_no_wait(fd)

    def pipe_non_blocking_is_error_blocking(ex):
        if not isinstance(ex, PortableBlockingIOError):
            return False
        from ctypes import GetLastError
        ERROR_NO_DATA = 232

        return (GetLastError() == ERROR_NO_DATA)

    PortableBlockingIOError = OSError
else:
    def pipe_non_blocking_set(fd):
        import fcntl
        fl = fcntl.fcntl(fd, fcntl.F_GETFL)
        fcntl.fcntl(fd, fcntl.F_SETFL, fl | os.O_NONBLOCK)
        return True

    def pipe_non_blocking_is_error_blocking(ex):
        if not isinstance(ex, PortableBlockingIOError):
            return False
        return True

    PortableBlockingIOError = BlockingIOError

To avoid reading incomplete data, I ended up writing my own readline generator (which returns the byte string for each line).

Its a generator so you can for example...

def non_blocking_readlines(f, chunk=1024):
    """
    Iterate over lines, yielding b'' when nothings left
    or when new data is not yet available.

    stdout_iter = iter(non_blocking_readlines(process.stdout))

    line = next(stdout_iter)  # will be a line or b''.
    """
    import os

    from .pipe_non_blocking import (
            pipe_non_blocking_set,
            pipe_non_blocking_is_error_blocking,
            PortableBlockingIOError,
            )

    fd = f.fileno()
    pipe_non_blocking_set(fd)

    blocks = []

    while True:
        try:
            data = os.read(fd, chunk)
            if not data:
                # case were reading finishes with no trailing newline
                yield b''.join(blocks)
                blocks.clear()
        except PortableBlockingIOError as ex:
            if not pipe_non_blocking_is_error_blocking(ex):
                raise ex

            yield b''
            continue

        while True:
            n = data.find(b'\n')
            if n == -1:
                break

            yield b''.join(blocks) + data[:n + 1]
            data = data[n + 1:]
            blocks.clear()
        blocks.append(data)

Answer 6

Things are a lot better in modern Python.

Here's a simple child program, "hello.py":

#!/usr/bin/env python3

while True:
    i = input()
    if i == "quit":
        break
    print(f"hello {i}")

And a program to interact with it:

import asyncio


async def main():
    proc = await asyncio.subprocess.create_subprocess_exec(
        "./hello.py", stdin=asyncio.subprocess.PIPE, stdout=asyncio.subprocess.PIPE
    )
    proc.stdin.write(b"bob\n")
    print(await proc.stdout.read(1024))
    proc.stdin.write(b"alice\n")
    print(await proc.stdout.read(1024))
    proc.stdin.write(b"quit\n")
    await proc.wait()


asyncio.run(main())

That prints out:

b'hello bob\n'
b'hello alice\n'

Note that the actual pattern, which is also by almost all of the previous answers, both here and in related questions, is to set the child's stdout file descriptor to non-blocking and then poll it in some sort of select loop. These days, of course, that loop is provided by asyncio.