Assigning output from a simple python statement

[William Park]

On Thu, Mar 16, 2000 at 07:14:57AM +0000, Wilson Fletcher wrote:
> I would like to execute an unknown python statement and store the output.
> 
> It will typically be a print statement. eg. "print 'Hello World'"
> 
> I won't know the statement until runtime becuase it will come from a
> database. BUT I want to capture anything that goes to stdout and process
> it. 
> 
> I'm fairly new to python and the best I can come up with is:
> 
> # Assume the statement is stored in a dictionary with the key "code".
> 
> 	from os import popen
> 
> 	cmdDict['code'] = "print 'Hello World'"
> 
> 	line = popen( "python -c "+`cmdDict['code']` ).readline()
> 	process( line )
> 
> Any gurus out there have better suggestions ?
> 
> thanks,
> Wilson Fletcher

Usual solution is 'eval' for expression and 'exec' for statement (see
online doc for details).  To capture all output to <stdout>, you can
point 'sys.stdout' to some file, and later restore it to the default
'sys.__stdout__'.

--William