What's a good equivalent to python's subprocess.check_call that returns the contents of stdout?

Question

I'd like a good method that matches the interface of subprocess.check_call -- ie, it throws CalledProcessError when it fails, is synchronous, &c -- but instead of returning the return code of the command (if it even does that) returns the program's output, either only stdout, or a tuple of (stdout, stderr).

Does somebody have a method that does this?

Answer 1

Python 2.7+

from subprocess import check_output as qx

Python < 2.7

From subprocess.py:

def check_output(*popenargs, **kwargs):
    r"""Run command with arguments and return its output as a byte string.

    If the exit code was non-zero it raises a CalledProcessError.  The
    CalledProcessError object will have the return code in the returncode
    attribute and output in the output attribute.

    The arguments are the same as for the Popen constructor.  Example:

    >>> check_output(["ls", "-l", "/dev/null"])
    'crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 1, 3 Oct 18  2007 /dev/null\n'

    The stdout argument is not allowed as it is used internally.
    To capture standard error in the result, use stderr=STDOUT.

    >>> check_output(["/bin/sh", "-c",
    ...               "ls -l non_existent_file ; exit 0"],
    ...              stderr=STDOUT)
    'ls: non_existent_file: No such file or directory\n'
    """
    if 'stdout' in kwargs:
        raise ValueError('stdout argument not allowed, it will be overridden.')
    process = Popen(stdout=PIPE, *popenargs, **kwargs)
    output, unused_err = process.communicate()
    retcode = process.poll()
    if retcode:
        cmd = kwargs.get("args")
        if cmd is None:
            cmd = popenargs[0]
        raise CalledProcessError(retcode, cmd, output=output)
    return output

See Capturing system command output as a string.