Non-blocking read on a subprocess.PIPE in python

Question

I'm using the subprocess module to start a subprocess and connect to it's output stream (stdout). I want to be able to execute non-blocking reads on its stdout. Is there a way to make .readline non-blocking or to check if there is data on the stream before I invoke .readline? I'd like this to be portable or at least work under Windows and Linux.

here is how I do it for now (It's blocking on the .readline if no data is avaible):

p = subprocess.Popen('myprogram.exe', stdout = subprocess.PIPE)
output_str = p.stdout.readline()

Answer 1

EDIT: This implementation still blocks. Use J.F.Sebastian's answer instead.

I tried the top answer, but the additional risk and maintenance of thread code was worrisome.

Looking through the io module (and being limited to 2.6), I found BufferedReader. This is my threadless, non-blocking solution.

import io
from subprocess import PIPE, Popen

p = Popen(['myprogram.exe'], stdout=PIPE)

SLEEP_DELAY = 0.001

# Create an io.BufferedReader on the file descriptor for stdout
with io.open(p.stdout.fileno(), 'rb', closefd=False) as buffer:
  while p.poll() == None:
      time.sleep(SLEEP_DELAY)
      while '\n' in bufferedStdout.peek(bufferedStdout.buffer_size):
          line = buffer.readline()
          # do stuff with the line

  # Handle any remaining output after the process has ended
  while buffer.peek():
    line = buffer.readline()
    # do stuff with the line

Answer 2

Use select & read(1).

import subprocess     #no new requirements
def readAllSoFar(proc, retVal=''): 
  while (select.select([proc.stdout],[],[],0)[0]!=[]):   
    retVal+=proc.stdout.read(1)
  return retVal
p = subprocess.Popen(['/bin/ls'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
while not p.poll():
  print (readAllSoFar(p))

For readline()-like:

lines = ['']
while not p.poll():
  lines = readAllSoFar(p, lines[-1]).split('\n')
  for a in range(len(lines)-1):
    print a
lines = readAllSoFar(p, lines[-1]).split('\n')
for a in range(len(lines)-1):
  print a

Answer 3

Here is my code, used to catch every output from subprocess ASAP, including partial lines. It pumps at same time and stdout and stderr in almost correct order.

Tested and correctly worked on Python 2.7 linux & windows.

#!/usr/bin/python
#
# Runner with stdout/stderr catcher
#
from sys import argv
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
import os, io
from threading import Thread
import Queue
def __main__():
    if (len(argv) > 1) and (argv[-1] == "-sub-"):
        import time, sys
        print "Application runned!"
        time.sleep(2)
        print "Slept 2 second"
        time.sleep(1)
        print "Slept 1 additional second",
        time.sleep(2)
        sys.stderr.write("Stderr output after 5 seconds")
        print "Eol on stdin"
        sys.stderr.write("Eol on stderr\n")
        time.sleep(1)
        print "Wow, we have end of work!",
    else:
        os.environ["PYTHONUNBUFFERED"]="1"
        try:
            p = Popen( argv + ["-sub-"],
                       bufsize=0, # line-buffered
                       stdin=PIPE, stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE )
        except WindowsError, W:
            if W.winerror==193:
                p = Popen( argv + ["-sub-"],
                           shell=True, # Try to run via shell
                           bufsize=0, # line-buffered
                           stdin=PIPE, stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE )
            else:
                raise
        inp = Queue.Queue()
        sout = io.open(p.stdout.fileno(), 'rb', closefd=False)
        serr = io.open(p.stderr.fileno(), 'rb', closefd=False)
        def Pump(stream, category):
            queue = Queue.Queue()
            def rdr():
                while True:
                    buf = stream.read1(8192)
                    if len(buf)>0:
                        queue.put( buf )
                    else:
                        queue.put( None )
                        return
            def clct():
                active = True
                while active:
                    r = queue.get()
                    try:
                        while True:
                            r1 = queue.get(timeout=0.005)
                            if r1 is None:
                                active = False
                                break
                            else:
                                r += r1
                    except Queue.Empty:
                        pass
                    inp.put( (category, r) )
            for tgt in [rdr, clct]:
                th = Thread(target=tgt)
                th.setDaemon(True)
                th.start()
        Pump(sout, 'stdout')
        Pump(serr, 'stderr')

        while p.poll() is None:
            # App still working
            try:
                chan,line = inp.get(timeout = 1.0)
                if chan=='stdout':
                    print "STDOUT>>", line, "<?<"
                elif chan=='stderr':
                    print " ERROR==", line, "=?="
            except Queue.Empty:
                pass
        print "Finish"

if __name__ == '__main__':
    __main__()

Answer 4

Adding this answer here since it provides ability to set non-blocking pipes on Windows and Unix.

All the ctypes details are thanks to @techtonik's answer.

There is a slightly modified version to be used both on Unix and Windows systems.

• Python3 compatible (only minor change needed).
• Includes posix version, and defines exception to use for either.

This way you can use the same function and exception for Unix and Windows code.

# pipe_non_blocking.py (module)
"""
Example use:

    p = subprocess.Popen(
            command,
            stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
            )

    pipe_non_blocking_set(p.stdout.fileno())

    try:
        data = os.read(p.stdout.fileno(), 1)
    except PortableBlockingIOError as ex:
        if not pipe_non_blocking_is_error_blocking(ex):
            raise ex
"""


__all__ = (
    "pipe_non_blocking_set",
    "pipe_non_blocking_is_error_blocking",
    "PortableBlockingIOError",
    )

import os


if os.name == "nt":
    def pipe_non_blocking_set(fd):
        # Constant could define globally but avoid polluting the name-space
        # thanks to: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/34504970
        import msvcrt

        from ctypes import windll, byref, wintypes, WinError, POINTER
        from ctypes.wintypes import HANDLE, DWORD, BOOL

        LPDWORD = POINTER(DWORD)

        PIPE_NOWAIT = wintypes.DWORD(0x00000001)

        def pipe_no_wait(pipefd):
            SetNamedPipeHandleState = windll.kernel32.SetNamedPipeHandleState
            SetNamedPipeHandleState.argtypes = [HANDLE, LPDWORD, LPDWORD, LPDWORD]
            SetNamedPipeHandleState.restype = BOOL

            h = msvcrt.get_osfhandle(pipefd)

            res = windll.kernel32.SetNamedPipeHandleState(h, byref(PIPE_NOWAIT), None, None)
            if res == 0:
                print(WinError())
                return False
            return True

        return pipe_no_wait(fd)

    def pipe_non_blocking_is_error_blocking(ex):
        if not isinstance(ex, PortableBlockingIOError):
            return False
        from ctypes import GetLastError
        ERROR_NO_DATA = 232

        return (GetLastError() == ERROR_NO_DATA)

    PortableBlockingIOError = OSError
else:
    def pipe_non_blocking_set(fd):
        import fcntl
        fl = fcntl.fcntl(fd, fcntl.F_GETFL)
        fcntl.fcntl(fd, fcntl.F_SETFL, fl | os.O_NONBLOCK)
        return True

    def pipe_non_blocking_is_error_blocking(ex):
        if not isinstance(ex, PortableBlockingIOError):
            return False
        return True

    PortableBlockingIOError = BlockingIOError

To avoid reading incomplete data, I ended up writing my own readline generator (which returns the byte string for each line).

Its a generator so you can for example...

def non_blocking_readlines(f, chunk=1024):
    """
    Iterate over lines, yielding b'' when nothings left
    or when new data is not yet available.

    stdout_iter = iter(non_blocking_readlines(process.stdout))

    line = next(stdout_iter)  # will be a line or b''.
    """
    import os

    from .pipe_non_blocking import (
            pipe_non_blocking_set,
            pipe_non_blocking_is_error_blocking,
            PortableBlockingIOError,
            )

    fd = f.fileno()
    pipe_non_blocking_set(fd)

    blocks = []

    while True:
        try:
            data = os.read(fd, chunk)
            if not data:
                # case were reading finishes with no trailing newline
                yield b''.join(blocks)
                blocks.clear()
        except PortableBlockingIOError as ex:
            if not pipe_non_blocking_is_error_blocking(ex):
                raise ex

            yield b''
            continue

        while True:
            n = data.find(b'\n')
            if n == -1:
                break

            yield b''.join(blocks) + data[:n + 1]
            data = data[n + 1:]
            blocks.clear()
        blocks.append(data)

Answer 5

One solution is to make another process to perform your read of the process, or make a thread of the process with a timeout.

Here's the threaded version of a timeout function:

http://code.activestate.com/recipes/473878/

However, do you need to read the stdout as it's coming in? Another solution may be to dump the output to a file and wait for the process to finish using p.wait().

f = open('myprogram_output.txt','w')
p = subprocess.Popen('myprogram.exe', stdout=f)
p.wait()
f.close()


str = open('myprogram_output.txt','r').read()

Answer 6

This version of non-blocking read doesn't require special modules and will work out-of-the-box on majority of Linux distros.

import os
import sys
import time
import fcntl
import subprocess

def async_read(fd):
    # set non-blocking flag while preserving old flags
    fl = fcntl.fcntl(fd, fcntl.F_GETFL)
    fcntl.fcntl(fd, fcntl.F_SETFL, fl | os.O_NONBLOCK)
    # read char until EOF hit
    while True:
        try:
            ch = os.read(fd.fileno(), 1)
            # EOF
            if not ch: break                                                                                                                                                              
            sys.stdout.write(ch)
        except OSError:
            # waiting for data be available on fd
            pass

def shell(args, async=True):
    # merge stderr and stdout
    proc = subprocess.Popen(args, shell=False, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)
    if async: async_read(proc.stdout)
    sout, serr = proc.communicate()
    return (sout, serr)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    cmd = 'ping 8.8.8.8'
    sout, serr = shell(cmd.split())