How-To Execute Shell Commands in Python 3
Introduction
Shell automation (i.e., scripting/batching things on the command-line) is a heck of a time-saving practice. While I’m great at making command-line scripts in Python, there are a bunch of other command-line tools that I could be accessing from within Python to make my scripts even more effective.
This article will detail how to execute command-line/shell commands from within Python scripts.
Executing Shell Commands Within a Python Script
There are two main ways to execute shell commands: using os.system and using subprocesses.
Using os.system is quick and effective for some situations, but using subprocesses allows you much more control of the whole process.
os.system Approach
The easiest way suggested by my one resource is to use the os.system module, like this:
import os
os.system('ls -l')You can’t get the output of the script as a variable or anything else cool with this approach, but it’s all I need for now.
SubProcess Approach
When I need this approach, I’ll document it. For now, you can just look at the site in Resources for all of the information.