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subprocess — Subprocess management — Python 3.8.6 documentation

Execute a child program in a new process. On POSIX, the class uses os.execvp()-like behavior to execute the child program. On Windows, the class uses the Windows CreateProcess() function. The arguments to Popen are as follows.

args should be a sequence of program arguments or else a single string or path-like object. By default, the program to execute is the first item in args if args is a sequence. If args is a string, the interpretation is platform-dependent and described below. See the shell and executable arguments for additional differences from the default behavior. Unless otherwise stated, it is recommended to pass args as a sequence.

An example of passing some arguments to an external program as a sequence is:

Popen(["/usr/bin/git", "commit", "-m", "Fixes a bug."])

On POSIX, if args is a string, the string is interpreted as the name or path of the program to execute. However, this can only be done if not passing arguments to the program.

Note

It may not be obvious how to break a shell command into a sequence of arguments, especially in complex cases. shlex.split() can illustrate how to determine the correct tokenization for args:

>>> import shlex, subprocess
>>> command_line = input()
/bin/vikings -input eggs.txt -output "spam spam.txt" -cmd "echo '$MONEY'"
>>> args = shlex.split(command_line)
>>> print(args)
['/bin/vikings', '-input', 'eggs.txt', '-output', 'spam spam.txt', '-cmd', "echo '$MONEY'"]
>>> p = subprocess.Popen(args) # Success!

Note in particular that options (such as -input) and arguments (such as eggs.txt) that are separated by whitespace in the shell go in separate list elements, while arguments that need quoting or backslash escaping when used in the shell (such as filenames containing spaces or the echo command shown above) are single list elements.

On Windows, if args is a sequence, it will be converted to a string in a manner described in Converting an argument sequence to a string on Windows. This is because the underlying CreateProcess() operates on strings.

Changed in version 3.6: args parameter accepts a path-like object if shell is False and a sequence containing path-like objects on POSIX.

Changed in version 3.8: args parameter accepts a path-like object if shell is False and a sequence containing bytes and path-like objects on Windows.

The shell argument (which defaults to False) specifies whether to use the shell as the program to execute. If shell is True, it is recommended to pass args as a string rather than as a sequence.

On POSIX with shell=True, the shell defaults to /bin/sh. If args is a string, the string specifies the command to execute through the shell. This means that the string must be formatted exactly as it would be when typed at the shell prompt. This includes, for example, quoting or backslash escaping filenames with spaces in them. If args is a sequence, the first item specifies the command string, and any additional items will be treated as additional arguments to the shell itself. That is to say, Popen does the equivalent of:

Popen(['/bin/sh', '-c', args[0], args[1], ...])

On Windows with shell=True, the COMSPEC environment variable specifies the default shell. The only time you need to specify shell=True on Windows is when the command you wish to execute is built into the shell (e.g. dir or copy). You do not need shell=True to run a batch file or console-based executable.

Note

Read the Security Considerations section before using shell=True.

bufsize will be supplied as the corresponding argument to the open() function when creating the stdin/stdout/stderr pipe file objects:

  • 0 means unbuffered (read and write are one system call and can return short)

  • 1 means line buffered (only usable if universal_newlines=True i.e., in a text mode)

  • any other positive value means use a buffer of approximately that size

  • negative bufsize (the default) means the system default of io.DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE will be used.

Changed in version 3.3.1: bufsize now defaults to -1 to enable buffering by default to match the behavior that most code expects. In versions prior to Python 3.2.4 and 3.3.1 it incorrectly defaulted to 0 which was unbuffered and allowed short reads. This was unintentional and did not match the behavior of Python 2 as most code expected.

The executable argument specifies a replacement program to execute. It is very seldom needed. When shell=False, executable replaces the program to execute specified by args. However, the original args is still passed to the program. Most programs treat the program specified by args as the command name, which can then be different from the program actually executed. On POSIX, the args name becomes the display name for the executable in utilities such as ps. If shell=True, on POSIX the executable argument specifies a replacement shell for the default /bin/sh.

Changed in version 3.6: executable parameter accepts a path-like object on POSIX.

Changed in version 3.8: executable parameter accepts a bytes and path-like object on Windows.

stdin, stdout and stderr specify the executed program’s standard input, standard output and standard error file handles, respectively. Valid values are PIPE, DEVNULL, an existing file descriptor (a positive integer), an existing file object, and None. PIPE indicates that a new pipe to the child should be created. DEVNULL indicates that the special file os.devnull will be used. With the default settings of None, no redirection will occur; the child’s file handles will be inherited from the parent. Additionally, stderr can be STDOUT, which indicates that the stderr data from the applications should be captured into the same file handle as for stdout.

If preexec_fn is set to a callable object, this object will be called in the child process just before the child is executed. (POSIX only)

Warning

The preexec_fn parameter is not safe to use in the presence of threads in your application. The child process could deadlock before exec is called. If you must use it, keep it trivial! Minimize the number of libraries you call into.

Note

If you need to modify the environment for the child use the env parameter rather than doing it in a preexec_fn. The start_new_session parameter can take the place of a previously common use of preexec_fn to call os.setsid() in the child.

Changed in version 3.8: The preexec_fn parameter is no longer supported in subinterpreters. The use of the parameter in a subinterpreter raises RuntimeError. The new restriction may affect applications that are deployed in mod_wsgi, uWSGI, and other embedded environments.

If close_fds is true, all file descriptors except 0, 1 and 2 will be closed before the child process is executed. Otherwise when close_fds is false, file descriptors obey their inheritable flag as described in Inheritance of File Descriptors.

On Windows, if close_fds is true then no handles will be inherited by the child process unless explicitly passed in the handle_list element of STARTUPINFO.lpAttributeList, or by standard handle redirection.

Changed in version 3.2: The default for close_fds was changed from False to what is described above.

Changed in version 3.7: On Windows the default for close_fds was changed from False to True when redirecting the standard handles. It’s now possible to set close_fds to True when redirecting the standard handles.

pass_fds is an optional sequence of file descriptors to keep open between the parent and child. Providing any pass_fds forces close_fds to be True. (POSIX only)

Changed in version 3.2: The pass_fds parameter was added.

If cwd is not None, the function changes the working directory to cwd before executing the child. cwd can be a string, bytes or path-like object. In particular, the function looks for executable (or for the first item in args) relative to cwd if the executable path is a relative path.

Changed in version 3.6: cwd parameter accepts a path-like object on POSIX.

Changed in version 3.7: cwd parameter accepts a path-like object on Windows.

Changed in version 3.8: cwd parameter accepts a bytes object on Windows.

If restore_signals is true (the default) all signals that Python has set to SIG_IGN are restored to SIG_DFL in the child process before the exec. Currently this includes the SIGPIPE, SIGXFZ and SIGXFSZ signals. (POSIX only)

Changed in version 3.2: restore_signals was added.

If start_new_session is true the setsid() system call will be made in the child process prior to the execution of the subprocess. (POSIX only)

Changed in version 3.2: start_new_session was added.

If env is not None, it must be a mapping that defines the environment variables for the new process; these are used instead of the default behavior of inheriting the current process’ environment.

Note

If specified, env must provide any variables required for the program to execute. On Windows, in order to run a side-by-side assembly the specified env must include a valid SystemRoot.

If encoding or errors are specified, or text is true, the file objects stdin, stdout and stderr are opened in text mode with the specified encoding and errors, as described above in Frequently Used Arguments. The universal_newlines argument is equivalent to text and is provided for backwards compatibility. By default, file objects are opened in binary mode.

New in version 3.6: encoding and errors were added.

New in version 3.7: text was added as a more readable alias for universal_newlines.

If given, startupinfo will be a STARTUPINFO object, which is passed to the underlying CreateProcess function. creationflags, if given, can be one or more of the following flags:

Popen objects are supported as context managers via the with statement: on exit, standard file descriptors are closed, and the process is waited for.

with Popen(["ifconfig"], stdout=PIPE) as proc:
    log.write(proc.stdout.read())

Popen and the other functions in this module that use it raise an auditing event subprocess.Popen with arguments executable, args, cwd, and env. The value for args may be a single string or a list of strings, depending on platform.

Changed in version 3.2: Added context manager support.

Changed in version 3.6: Popen destructor now emits a ResourceWarning warning if the child process is still running.

Changed in version 3.8: Popen can use os.posix_spawn() in some cases for better performance. On Windows Subsystem for Linux and QEMU User Emulation, Popen constructor using os.posix_spawn() no longer raise an exception on errors like missing program, but the child process fails with a non-zero returncode.