Question

I would like to call an external script from within a function, for instance:

import subprocess

def call_script(script):
   subprocess.call(script)
   return answer #retrieving the result is the part I'm struggling with

call_script("/user/bin/calc_delta.py")

The script calc_delta.py simply prints the result when it is done. How can I assign the result of that script to a variable? Thank you.

Answer 1

Instead of using subprocess.call you should use Popen and call communicate on it.

That will allow you to read stdout and stderr. You can also input data with stdin.

Example from the docs http://docs.python.org/library/subprocess.html#replacing-bin-sh-shell-backquote:

output = Popen(["mycmd", "myarg"], stdout=PIPE).communicate()[0]