User input in subprocess call?

Question

I am working to automate the Wig tool in python, which will involve including a URL.

Currently I take in user input (a URL) but am having difficulty adding it to the end of the subprocess call.

import subprocess
var = raw_input("Enter a URL: ")
subprocess.call('python3 wig.py ', var)

I know this is probably a simple question, but any help would be appreciated!

• Padraic Cunningham: Use a list of args

Answer 1

Pass the arguments as a list as @PadraicCunningham suggests:

args = ['python3','wig.py']
args.append(var)
subprocess.call(args)

If your argument list becomes long and complicated you can bring in shlex:

import shlex
args = shlex.split('python3 wig.py {}'.format(var))
subprocess.call(args)

• arcade16: I am getting an error: Traceback (most recent call last): File "automate_wig.py", line 5, in <module> subprocess.call('python3 wig.py {}'.format(var)) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 522, in call return Popen(*popenargs, **kwargs).wait() File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 710, in init errread, errwrite) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1327, in _execute_child raise child_exception OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory...Any ideas what could be causing it?
• arcade16: I believe so, it works if I just run python3 wig.py google.com
• arcade16: yup! The directory I run this script in has wig.py in the same folder
• arcade16: I believe it works if I do this: process = subprocess.call('python3 wig.py {}'.format(var), shell=True, stdout=subprocess.PIPE) print process.returncode