Question

Using Python2.4 I want to capture output from a mysql command. One caveat is that I need to pipe the SQL statement using an echo.

echo 'SELECT user FROM mysql.user;' | mysql

I see example using call, os.system, popen but what is best to use for my version of python and capturing the output in a tuple.

Thanks

Answer 1

The subprocess module is the most flexible tool for running commands and controlling the input and output. The following runs a command and captures the output as a list of lines:

import subprocess

p = subprocess.Popen(['/bin/bash', '-c', "echo 'select user from mysql.user;' | mysql" ],
    stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)

lines = [line for line in p.stdout]

On Windows, bash -c would be replaced with cmd /c.