Python - open new shell and run command

Question

At the moment I am running a bash command from within Python using the following method:

os.system(cmd)

However I need to run the command in a new shell/terminal. Does anyone know how to do this?

Thanks, Dan

• Wooble: By "new terminal" do you mean you want your window manager to create a new terminal window in which the command runs?

Answer 1

I am using the following method (this will also redirect stderr to stdout):

import subprocess 
cmd_line = "echo Hello!"
p = subprocess.Popen(cmd_line, shell=True, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)
out = p.communicate()[0]
print out

Answer 2

os.system() is deprecated in favour of :

import subprocess
print subprocess.check_output("command", shell=True)

• Zlatko-Minev: does this actually make a new separete process or just a subshell? bcs subshells can have conflicts with file handes. ie using os.system() is bad since thats a subshell

Answer 3

Windows "WshShell", Google it, is the answer. My complete steps:

Install

1. pip install pywin32-221-cp36-cp36m-win_amd64.whl
2. python.exe pywin32_postinstall.py -install (DOS command line)

Run

3. import win32com.client
4. WshShell = win32com.client.Dispatch("WScript.Shell")
5. WshShell.run("cmd") 

WshShell.run() is what you need, there are many different ways to run. hidden window, new window, full screen, minimized, ... etc.