output from external commands

[Mike Meyer]

James Colannino <james at colannino.org> writes:

> Hey everyone.  First off, I'm new to the list.  I had had a little bit
> of experience with Perl before discovering Python.  The more Python I
> learn, the more I love it :)  I just have a quick question to ask.  I
> know that this is probably a simple question, but I've been googling
> around, and partly because I'm not sure exactly what to search for,
> I've been unsuccessful at finding an answer.  What I'd like to do is
> be able to take the output of an external command and assign it as an
> array of strings.  So, for example, in Perl I could do something like:
>
> @files = `ls`;
>
> So I guess I'm looking for something similiar to the backticks in
> Perl.  Forgive me if I've asked something that's a bit basic for this
> list.  Any help would be greatly appreciated :)  Thanks very much in
> advance.

This is a scripting language feature. Python doesn't have direct
support for it, any more than C++ does. To get that functionality, you
want to use either the os.popen function, or - preferable, but only
available in newer Pythons - the subprocess module.

      <mike
-- 
Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org>			http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.