[Pythonmac-SIG] Dock: adding/removing/checking

[brad.allen at omsdal.com]

Bob Ippolito <bob at redivi.com> wrote on 10/15/2004 12:26:54 PM:

> I don't believe there's a "native API" for manipulating the dock
> because software applications are not "allowed" (by convention) to
> modify the dock.

I see. No wonder it's been so difficult to find documentation on this.
Still, some software installers do add icons to the Dock. Example: MS
Office 2004.


> I have two comments about what you're doing though:
>
> - The way you call the defaults application is HORRENDOUS!  Wow.  I
> highly suggest using the subprocess module (formerly process, formerly
> popen5) that is going to be in Python 2.4, or at least
> os.spawnl/os.spawnv:

I've used this "getCommandOutput" function fairly extensively with success,
so I'd like to find out what's wrong with it.


#--------------begin Python Cookbook popen example code---------
#because FCNTL has been deprecated in favor of fcntl, I found changes
posted by a commenter
#at http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python/Recipe/52296
#I don't really understand the nonBlocking stuff, but it seems to work --BA


def makeNonBlocking(fd):
    fl = fcntl.fcntl(fd, fcntl.F_GETFL)
    try:
      fcntl.fcntl(fd, fcntl.F_SETFL, fl | os.O_NDELAY)
    except AttributeError:
      fcntl.fcntl(fd, fcntl.F_SETFL, fl | os.FNDELAY)

def getCommandOutput(command):
    child = popen2.Popen3(command, 1) # Capture stdout and stderr from
command
    child.tochild.close(  )             # don't need to write to child's
stdin
    outfile = child.fromchild
    outfd = outfile.fileno(  )
    errfile = child.childerr
    errfd = errfile.fileno(  )
    makeNonBlocking(outfd)            # Don't deadlock! Make fd's
nonblocking.
    makeNonBlocking(errfd)
    outdata = errdata = ''
    outeof = erreof = 0
    while 1:
        ready = select.select([outfd,errfd],[],[]) # Wait for input
        if outfd in ready[0]:
            outchunk = outfile.read(  )
            if outchunk == '': outeof = 1
            outdata = outdata + outchunk
        if errfd in ready[0]:
            errchunk = errfile.read(  )
            if errchunk == '': erreof = 1
            errdata = errdata + errchunk
        if outeof and erreof: break
        select.select([],[],[],.1) # Allow a little time for buffers to
fill
    err = child.wait(  )
    if err != 0:
        raise RuntimeError, '%s failed with exit code %d\n%s' % (
            command, err, errdata)
    return outdata

#--------------end Python Cookbook popen example code-----------


> - You can also read/write plist files with PyObjC, using the
> NSUserDefaults and/or NSDictionary's plist
> serialization/deserialization methods instead of the defaults command,
> which is about as native as you're going to get.  The standard
> library's plistlib might also work, but it's not the most complete and
> accurate implementation out there, so I don't know how much I'd trust
> it for this purpose.


Ok, thanks. I will look into this.