[Tutor] How to interact with the result of subprocess.call()

[Jim Byrnes]

On 12/24/2016 05:10 PM, Danny Yoo wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 24, 2016 at 2:40 PM, Jim Byrnes <jf_byrnes at comcast.net> wrote:
>> subprocess.call(['libreoffice', '/home/jfb/test.ods'])
>> k.tap_key(k.enter_key)
>> k.tap_key(k.enter_key)
>>
>> If I run the above code, libreoffice opens the test.ods spreadsheet then
>> just sits there. When I close libreoffice the two enter_keys are executed in
>> the terminal that originated the script.
>>
>> How can I continue to send keystrokes to libreoffice from the script once it
>> has been opened by subprocess.call()?
>
>
> Hi Jim,
>
> You can not use subprocess to automate a GUI application.  This
> approach will not work because libreoffice isn't written to pay
> attention to the stdin file handle of its process.
>
> That's one of the traditional reasons why GUI applications are
> unpopular for programmers: in general, GUI-based applications are not
> trivial to automate.
>
> You do have a few options:
>
>
> * See if the application provides a programming interface (an "API").
>
> In the case of libreoffice, there does appear to be such an API:
>
>     http://api.libreoffice.org/examples/examples.html#python_examples
>
> Accessing it is very much outside the domain of Python-tutor: you will
> likely need to talk with with the libreoffice folks.  But if you can
> do this, it's probably nicer since the interface will use the terms of
> libreoffice, rather than in terms of keystrokes, timer delays, and
> mouse movement.
>
>
> * More general automation of GUI applications is possible.  Here is a
> link to pyautogui, a third-party library that handles GUI automation:
>
>      http://pyautogui.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
>
> Again, you'll probably need to talk with folks who have experience
> with pyautogui; I don't think many of us on Tutor are very familiar
> with it.
>
>
> Good luck!

Danny,


I am not trying to automate libreoffice using subprocess. In an earlier 
message I was told that subprocess was the way to open libreoffice from 
a python script. It does do that but now it seems to be blocking my 
attempts to send keystrokes to libreoffice.

Up until this point in the script I have used a combination of Selenium 
and pykeyboard to log on to a web site and put some info in the 
clipboard. Now I need to send keystrokes to libreoffice to paste from 
the clipboard into the spreadsheet.

I have used pyuno api to automate libreoffice in the past, but it was a 
time consuming and confusing process.  I was trying this approach 
because it looked like I could avoid the uno complexity.  I think it 
would work if I could figure out how to send keystrokes to libreoffice 
after it is opened using subprocess or some alternative that would work 
better.

Regards,  Jim