[Tutor] "a cute recipe for getting the help command text"

[Kent Johnson]

It makes a file called cmd_help.txt in the current directory. Did you look for that? The file contains the result of asking for help on every command. Kind of cool!

Kent

Dick Moores wrote:
> Found this in comp.lang.python. The Google link is 
> <http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/9fa3a3c287e8e2a3?dmode=source>
> 
> =================================
> import subprocess as subp
> 
> p = subp.Popen("cmd.exe /X/D/F:ON", stdin=subp.PIPE,
>              stdout=subp.PIPE, stderr=subp.STDOUT)
> flag = "(@@@@@@}"
> print >>p.stdin, "PROMPT", flag
> print >>p.stdin, "HELP"
> print >>p.stdin, "EXIT"
> text = p.stdout.read()
> p.wait()
> helptext = text[text.index(flag + 'HELP') + len(flag) + 4 :
>               text.index(flag + 'EXIT')]
> words = [line.split(None, 1)[0]
>        for line in helptext.split('\n')
>        if line.strip()]
> commands = [word for word in words if word.isupper()]
> 
> dest = open('cmd_help.txt', 'wb')
> p = subp.Popen("cmd.exe /X/D/F:ON", stdin=subp.PIPE,
>              stdout=dest, stderr=subp.STDOUT)
> print >>p.stdin, "PROMPT (@@@@@@@@)"
> print >>p.stdin, "HELP"
> for command in commands:
>   print >>p.stdin, "HELP", command
> print >>p.stdin, "EXIT"
> p.wait()
> dest.close()
> =================end of script=============
> 
> When I run this I get no text, but just a series of cmd.exe windows 
> entitled HELP <command>. How do I get any text?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Dick Moores
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Tutor maillist  -  Tutor at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
> 
>