What I'd like to achieve is the launch of the following shell command:
mysql -h hostAddress -u userName -p userPassword
databaseName < fileName
From within a python 2.4 script with something not unlike:
cmd = ["mysql", "-h", ip, "-u", mysqlUser, dbName, "<", file]
subprocess.call(cmd)
This pukes due to the use of the redirect symbol (I believe) - mysql doesn't receive the input file.
I've also tried:
subprocess.call(cmd, stdin=subprocess.PIPE)
no go there ether
Can someone specify the syntax to make a shell call such that I can feed in a file redirection ?
Thanks in advance.
You have to feed the file into mysql stdin by yourself. This should do it.
import subprocess
...
filename = ...
cmd = ["mysql", "-h", ip, "-u", mysqlUser, dbName]
f = open(filename)
subprocess.call(cmd, stdin=f)
The symbol <
has this meaning (i. e. reading a file to stdin
) only in shell. In Python you should use either of the following:
1) Read file contents in your process and push it to stdin
of the child process:
fd = open(filename, 'rb')
try:
subprocess.call(cmd, stdin=fd)
finally:
fd.close()
2) Read file contents via shell (as you mentioned), but redirect stdin
of your process accordingly:
# In file myprocess.py
subprocess.call(cmd, stdin=subprocess.PIPE)
# In shell command line
$ python myprocess.py < filename
As Andrey correctly noticed, the <
redirection operator is interpreted by shell. Hence another possible solution:
import os
os.system("mysql -h " + ip + " -u " + mysqlUser + " " + dbName)
It works because os.system
passes its argument to the shell.
Note that I assumed that all used variables come from a trusted source, otherwise you need to validate them in order to prevent arbitrary code execution. Also those variables should not contain whitespace (default IFS
value) or shell special characters.