Function to call a extern command as a filter

Wed Sep 25 07:27:29 EDT 2019

On 25/09/2019 12:04, Ulrich Goebel wrote:
> Hello,
>> what I want:
>> I want a function which converts a markdown-formatted string to a 
> latex-formatted string
[snip]
> I have a extern tool pandoc which does exactly what I want, but it
> works on files. This tool is able to work as a pipe, so it uses
> the standard input and standard outpu.
>> What I could do:
>> def markdown_to_latex (m : string)
>     write the string m to a file
>     call pandoc to work on that file
>     read the outputfile into the string l
>     return (l)
>> What would be nice:
>> I would like to avoid the extra steps writing an reading extern files.

subprocess is your friend here. Something like:
import subprocess
def mardown_to_latex(markdown_string):
 latex = subprocess.run(cmd_string_for_pandoc,
 input=markdown_string,
 string=True,
 capture_output=True)
 return latex.output
The above is completely untested and not in the least bit robust, but 
that's the area of the standard library you should be looking at.
-- 
Rhodri James *-* Kynesim Ltd