subprocess.Popen in different console

Question

I hope this is not a duplicate.

I'm trying to use subprocess.Popen() to open a script in a separate console. I've tried setting the shell=True parameter but that didn't do the trick.

I use a 32 bit Python 2.7 on a 64 bit Windows 7.

Solution 1

from subprocess import *

c = 'dir' #Windows

handle = Popen(c, stdin=PIPE, stderr=PIPE, stdout=PIPE, shell=True)
print handle.stdout.read()
handle.flush()

If you don't use shell=True you'll have to supply Popen() with a list instead of a command string, example:

c = ['ls', '-l'] #Linux

and then open it without shell.

handle = Popen(c, stdin=PIPE, stderr=PIPE, stdout=PIPE)
print handle.stdout.read()
handle.flush()

This is the most manual and flexible way you can call a subprocess from Python. If you just want the output, go for:

from subproccess import check_output
print check_output('dir')

---

To open a new console GUI window and execute X:

import os
os.system("start cmd /K dir") #/K remains the window, /C executes and dies (popup)

Solution 2

To open in a different console, do (tested on Win7 / Python 3):

from subprocess import Popen, CREATE_NEW_CONSOLE

Popen('cmd', creationflags=CREATE_NEW_CONSOLE)

input('Enter to exit from Python script...')

Related

How can I spawn new shells to run python scripts from a base python script?

Solution 3

On Linux shell=True will do the trick:

command = 'python someFile.py' subprocess.Popen('xterm -hold -e "%s"' % command)

Doesn't work with gnome-terminal as described here:

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=180103

Comments

[A.Joly]

that's what I was looking for, thanks :) ... now I have to set a tempo before launching my other task ...

[Andrey Moiseev]

This should be the accepted answer. The solid way of opening a new console window in Windows is explicitly supplying the WINAPI process creation flags. Other solutions rely on Python implementation side-effects.