os.popen and place in file

[Stephen Boulet]

Thanks to all for the responses. Here's what I was able to do, using the 
StringIO module/class:

>>> import os
>>> from StringIO import *
>>> f = os.popen('ls /usr/local/bin')
>>> f = f.read()
>>> f=StringIO(f)
>>> for i in range(5):
...     print f.readline()
...
acroread

audacity

cabextract

demo

dos2unix

>>> f.seek(0)
>>> for i in range(5):
...     print f.readline()
...
acroread

audacity

cabextract

demo

dos2unix


-- Stephen

Erno Kuusela wrote:

> In article <3CFE2762.519E4344 at motorola.com>, Stephen Boulet
> <stephen.boulet at motorola.com> writes:
> 
> | I'm running windows NT.
> | The command:
> |   f = os.popen('dir')
> | returns a file object 'f'. I can't however use the seek command on it
> | [...] Anyone know why?
> 
> it is because the text output by the "dir" program is relayed directly
> to your program. the operating system does not store it away anywhere
> in case you want to revisit parts of it later. sockets and many
> unix device files work the same way. otherwise there would
> be problems when transferring large amounts of data through
> pipes.
> 
> if you want to access the data like a regular file, you could redirect
> the output from the command to a disk file and open that. or, read
> all of the data from the pipe and put it in a StringIO object.
> 
>   -- erno