How Can I Silently Capture Command Output in Python?

Capturing Command Output Silently with Python

When executing commands with os.system, you may encounter situations where you want to capture the output without displaying it on the screen. Here's how to do it:

In Python, the os.system function executes a command and returns its exit status. However, it also prints the output of the command to the console. To capture the output silently, use the subprocess module instead.

Using os.popen

The os.popen function can be used to execute commands and capture their output. It returns a pipe object that can be used to read the output. For example:

output = os.popen('cat /etc/services').read()
print(output)

Using subprocess

The subprocess module provides a more powerful way to manage and interact with subprocesses. Here's how to capture command output silently using subprocess:

import subprocess

proc = subprocess.Popen([
    'cat', '/etc/services'
], stdout=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True)

(output, err) = proc.communicate()
print('program output:', output)

This approach allows you to control various aspects of subprocess execution, such as input, output, and error handling. The communicate method waits for the subprocess to complete and returns a tuple containing the standard output and standard error streams.

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