python error with Popen while using subprocess

Question

I have my python script this

var1 = subprocess.Popen("pwd | grep 'home' ");
print var1

But it is giving me error

In addition to the questions above, what're you trying to do? There's probably a better (built-in) way to do it. — Sam Dolan
– Sam Dolan, Commented May 1, 2011 at 8:53

Mark Longair · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-01 08:57:43Z

6

You need to add shell=True if you want the shell to interpret the pipe correctly:

var1 = subprocess.Popen("pwd | grep 'home' ", shell=True)

(Note that you don't need a semi-colon at the end of the line.) That might not do what you expect, though - that returns a Popen object so then you need to check whether var1.wait() returns 0 or not.

A much easier way, if you just want to find out if the current directory contains 'home', is to do:

if 'home' in os.getcwd():
    print "'home' is in the current working directory's path"

edited May 1, 2011 at 8:57

answered May 1, 2011 at 8:46

Mark Longair

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2 Comments

Mahakaal Over a year ago

i get this <subprocess.Popen object at 0xb7ea0a6c>] . actually i am learing python and i don't know where to start . are there any tutorials which can help me doing linux tasks with python

ncoghlan Over a year ago

magazine.redhat.com/2008/02/07/… (2nd link in a Google search for "python bash replacement")

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