how to simulate tar filename substitution across piped subprocess.Popen() calls?

[jkn]

Hi Hans

On Nov 12, 4:36 pm, Hans Mulder <han... at xs4all.nl> wrote:
> On 12/11/12 16:36:58, jkn wrote:
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> > slight followup ...
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> > I have made some progress; for now I'm using subprocess.communicate to
> > read the output from the first subprocess, then writing it into the
> > secodn subprocess. This way I at least get to see what is
> > happening ...
>
> > The reason 'we' weren't seeing any output from the second call (the
> > 'xargs') is that as mentioned I had simplified this. The actual shell
> > command was more like (in python-speak):
>
> > "xargs -I {} sh -c \"test -f %s/{} && md5sum %s/{}\"" % (mydir, mydir)
>
> > ie. I am running md5sum on each tar-file entry which passes the 'is
> > this a file' test.
>
> > My next problem; how to translate the command-string clause
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> >     "test -f %s/{} && md5sum %s/{}" # ...
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> > into s parameter to subprocss.Popen(). I think it's the command
> > chaining '&&' which is tripping me up...
>
> It is not really necessary to translate the '&&': you can
> just write:
>
>     "test -f '%s/{}' && md5sum '%s/{}'" % (mydir, mydir)
>
> , and xargs will pass that to the shell, and then the shell
> will interpret the '&&' for you: you have shell=False in your
> subprocess.Popen call, but the arguments to xargs are -I {}
> sh -c "....", and this means that xargs ends up invoking the
> shell (after replacing the {} with the name of a file).
>
> Alternatively, you could translate it as:
>
>     "if [ -f '%s/{}' ]; then md5sum '%s/{}'; fi" % (mydir, mydir)
>
> ; that might make the intent clearer to whoever gets to
> maintain your code.

Yes to both points; turns out that my problem was in building up the
command sequence to subprocess.Popen() - when to use, and not use,
quotes etc. It has ended up as (spelled out in longhand...)


        xargsproc = ['xargs']

        xargsproc.append('-I')
        xargsproc.append("{}")

        xargsproc.append('sh')
        xargsproc.append('-c')

        xargsproc.append("test -f %s/{} && md5sum %s/{}" % (mydir,
mydir))


As usual, breaking it all down for the purposes of clarification has
helpd a lot, as has your input. Thanks a lot.

    Cheers
    Jon N