current community

your communities

more stack exchange communities

Stack Exchange Inbox Reputation and Badges
tour help
Sign up ×
Raspberry Pi Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for users and developers of hardware and software for Raspberry Pi. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 2 down vote favorite
2

I tried to make a python script to execute "sudo cp -avr /home/pi/progs/ /var/www/" but wasn't able 'cause of errors. Now I want to simply execute "ls /var/www/" but I got these errors:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/var/www/copy.py", line 17, in <module>
  subprocess.call(2)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 493, in call
  return Popen(*popenargs, **kwargs).wait()
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 679, in __init__
  errread, errwrite)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1259, in _execute_child
  raise child_exception
OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory

My code is:

import distutils.core
import shutil
import os
#src = "/home/pi/Desktop/programy/www"
#dst = "/var/www"

import subprocess
#komenda = "ls /var/www"
#subprocess.Popen(komenda)
glizda = os.path.split("/var/www/")
print glizda

2 = os.path.join("/var/www/")
print cipa
cipa2 = "ls "+cipa
print cipa2
subprocess.call(cipa2)

tried many different actions. Anyone can help?

share|improve this question
    
Do both the source and destination dirs exist? and if so what are the permissions? You can probably remove the os.path.join from line 13 and just set cipa = "/var/www/" have you tried this: import subprocess subprocess.call(["ls", "-l", "/var/www"]) or import os os.listdir("/var/www") Also, if you tell us what the big picture is rather than just the particular step you are having trouble with, we may be able to help more. –  Steve Robillard♦ Dec 7 '14 at 22:15
    
+1 for polish var names :P subprocess.call() is used with a string array containing options, like this: subprocess.call(["ls", "myfolder"]) –  thekiwi5000 Dec 10 '14 at 19:26

2 Answers 2

up vote 2 down vote accepted

I use this sort of invocation.

#!/usr/bin/env python

import subprocess

result = subprocess.check_output(["ls", "/", "-l"])

print(result)

result = subprocess.check_output(["/bin/ls", "/"])

print(result)

It's probably best to give the full path to executables as in the second example.

The command and each argument should be separate elements in the list.

share|improve this answer
    
Thank you! My bad was subprocess.Popen("ls /var/www/") instead of subprocess.Popen(["ls","/var/www/"]) which works! –  user22490 Dec 8 '14 at 21:09
up vote 0 down vote

If you don't need the output, try

os.system("ls -al /var/www")

EDIT: or the now recommended version (using shlex to make it easier to split the command):

import shlex
commandstring = "ls -al /var/www"
args= shlex.split(commandstring)
subprocess.Popen(args)

If you need the output, try the answer of joan. If you want to interact with the process while it is running, read the docs of subprocess.

share|improve this answer
    
subprocess.Popen("ls -al /var/www") Do not work. –  user22490 Dec 8 '14 at 21:08
    
What is the error message? If there is no error message, everything should have worked. The subprocess.Popen does not give any output, so you don't actually see the output of the "ls" command, but the system has checked which files are there. –  Michael Dec 8 '14 at 21:25
    
Traceback (most recent call last): File "/var/www/copy.py", line 16, in <module> subprocess.Popen("ls -al /var/www") File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 679, in init errread, errwrite) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/subprocess.py", line 1259, in _execute_child raise child_exception OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory –  user22490 Dec 8 '14 at 21:51
    
I've changed it to pass a list of arguments rather then a space seperated string of arguments. For simple commands like the one you are asking for, I normally still use os.system() because I can just pass the command and it just always works. –  Michael Dec 9 '14 at 10:55

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.