How to stream stdout/stderr from a child process u

Question

Under Python 3.4 on Windows, I need to stream data written to stdout/stderr by a child process, i.e. receive its output as it occurs, using the asyncio framework introduced in Python 3.4. I also have to determine the program's exit code afterwards. How can I do this?

Answer 1

Since the event loop may see and notify the process exit before reading the remaining data for stdout/stderr, we need to check PIPE close events in addition to the process exit event.

This is a correction for aknuds1 answer:

class SubprocessProtocol(asyncio.SubprocessProtocol):
    def __init__(self):
        self._exited = False
        self._closed_stdout = False
        self._closed_stderr = False

    @property
    def finished(self):
        return self._exited and self._closed_stdout and self._closed_stderr

    def signal_exit(self):
        if not self.finished:
            return
        loop.stop()        

    def pipe_data_received(self, fd, data):
        if fd == 1:
            name = 'stdout'
        elif fd == 2:
            name = 'stderr'
        text = data.decode(locale.getpreferredencoding(False))
        print('Received from {}: {}'.format(name, text.strip()))

    def pipe_connection_lost(self, fd, exc):
        if fd == 1:
            self._closed_stdout = True
        elif fd == 2:
            self._closed_stderr = True
        self.signal_exit()

    def process_exited(self):
        self._exited = True
        self.signal_exit()

Answer 2

I guess to use high-level api:

proc = yield from asyncio.create_subprocess_exec(
    'python', '-c', 'print(\'Hello async world!\')')

stdout, stderr = yield from proc.communicate()

retcode = proc.returncode

Also you can do more:

yield from proc.stdin.write(b'data')
yield from proc.stdin.drain()

stdout = yield from proc.stdout.read()
stderr = yield from proc.stderr.read()

retcode = yield from proc.wait()

and so on.

But, please, keep in mind that waiting for, say, stdout when child process prints nothing can hang you coroutine.

Answer 3

The solution I've come up with so far uses SubprocessProtocol to receive output from the child process, and the associated transport to get the process' exit code. I don't know if this is optimal though. I've based my approach on an answer to a similar question by J.F. Sebastian.

import asyncio
import contextlib
import os
import locale


class SubprocessProtocol(asyncio.SubprocessProtocol):
    def pipe_data_received(self, fd, data):
        if fd == 1:
            name = 'stdout'
        elif fd == 2:
            name = 'stderr'
        text = data.decode(locale.getpreferredencoding(False))
        print('Received from {}: {}'.format(name, text.strip()))

    def process_exited(self):
        loop.stop()


if os.name == 'nt':
    # On Windows, the ProactorEventLoop is necessary to listen on pipes
    loop = asyncio.ProactorEventLoop()
    asyncio.set_event_loop(loop)
else:
    loop = asyncio.get_event_loop()
with contextlib.closing(loop):
    # This will only connect to the process
    transport = loop.run_until_complete(loop.subprocess_exec(
        SubprocessProtocol, 'python', '-c', 'print(\'Hello async world!\')'))[0]
    # Wait until process has finished
    loop.run_forever()
    print('Program exited with: {}'.format(transport.get_returncode()))