| Python 3.6.5 Documentation > Asyncio Subprocess
Subprocess
**********
**Source code:** Lib/asyncio/subprocess.py
Windows event loop
==================
On Windows, the default event loop is "SelectorEventLoop" which does
not support subprocesses. "ProactorEventLoop" should be used instead.
Example to use it on Windows:
import asyncio, sys
if sys.platform == 'win32':
loop = asyncio.ProactorEventLoop()
asyncio.set_event_loop(loop)
See also: Available event loops and Platform support.
Create a subprocess: high-level API using Process
=================================================
coroutine asyncio.create_subprocess_exec(*args, stdin=None, stdout=None, stderr=None, loop=None, limit=None, **kwds)
Create a subprocess.
The *limit* parameter sets the buffer limit passed to the
"StreamReader". See "AbstractEventLoop.subprocess_exec()" for other
parameters.
Return a "Process" instance.
This function is a coroutine.
coroutine asyncio.create_subprocess_shell(cmd, stdin=None, stdout=None, stderr=None, loop=None, limit=None, **kwds)
Run the shell command *cmd*.
The *limit* parameter sets the buffer limit passed to the
"StreamReader". See "AbstractEventLoop.subprocess_shell()" for
other parameters.
Return a "Process" instance.
It is the application’s responsibility to ensure that all
whitespace and metacharacters are quoted appropriately to avoid
shell injection vulnerabilities. The "shlex.quote()" function can
be used to properly escape whitespace and shell metacharacters in
strings that are going to be used to construct shell commands.
This function is a coroutine.
Use the "AbstractEventLoop.connect_read_pipe()" and
"AbstractEventLoop.connect_write_pipe()" methods to connect pipes.
Create a subprocess: low-level API using subprocess.Popen
=========================================================
Run subprocesses asynchronously using the "subprocess" module.
coroutine AbstractEventLoop.subprocess_exec(protocol_factory, *args, stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE, **kwargs)
Create a subprocess from one or more string arguments (character
strings or bytes strings encoded to the filesystem encoding), where
the first string specifies the program to execute, and the
remaining strings specify the program’s arguments. (Thus, together
the string arguments form the "sys.argv" value of the program,
assuming it is a Python script.) This is similar to the standard
library "subprocess.Popen" class called with shell=False and the
list of strings passed as the first argument; however, where
"Popen" takes a single argument which is list of strings,
"subprocess_exec()" takes multiple string arguments.
The *protocol_factory* must instantiate a subclass of the
"asyncio.SubprocessProtocol" class.
Other parameters:
* *stdin*: Either a file-like object representing the pipe to be
connected to the subprocess’s standard input stream using
"connect_write_pipe()", or the constant "subprocess.PIPE" (the
default). By default a new pipe will be created and connected.
* *stdout*: Either a file-like object representing the pipe to be
connected to the subprocess’s standard output stream using
"connect_read_pipe()", or the constant "subprocess.PIPE" (the
default). By default a new pipe will be created and connected.
* *stderr*: Either a file-like object representing the pipe to be
connected to the subprocess’s standard error stream using
"connect_read_pipe()", or one of the constants "subprocess.PIPE"
(the default) or "subprocess.STDOUT". By default a new pipe will
be created and connected. When "subprocess.STDOUT" is specified,
the subprocess’s standard error stream will be connected to the
same pipe as the standard output stream.
* All other keyword arguments are passed to "subprocess.Popen"
without interpretation, except for *bufsize*,
*universal_newlines* and *shell*, which should not be specified
at all.
Returns a pair of "(transport, protocol)", where *transport* is an
instance of "BaseSubprocessTransport".
This method is a coroutine.
See the constructor of the "subprocess.Popen" class for parameters.
coroutine AbstractEventLoop.subprocess_shell(protocol_factory, cmd, *, stdin=subprocess.PIPE, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE, **kwargs)
Create a subprocess from *cmd*, which is a character string or a
bytes string encoded to the filesystem encoding, using the
platform’s “shell” syntax. This is similar to the standard library
"subprocess.Popen" class called with "shell=True".
The *protocol_factory* must instantiate a subclass of the
"asyncio.SubprocessProtocol" class.
See "subprocess_exec()" for more details about the remaining
arguments.
Returns a pair of "(transport, protocol)", where *transport* is an
instance of "BaseSubprocessTransport".
It is the application’s responsibility to ensure that all
whitespace and metacharacters are quoted appropriately to avoid
shell injection vulnerabilities. The "shlex.quote()" function can
be used to properly escape whitespace and shell metacharacters in
strings that are going to be used to construct shell commands.
This method is a coroutine.
See also: The "AbstractEventLoop.connect_read_pipe()" and
"AbstractEventLoop.connect_write_pipe()" methods.
Constants
=========
asyncio.subprocess.PIPE
Special value that can be used as the *stdin*, *stdout* or *stderr*
argument to "create_subprocess_shell()" and
"create_subprocess_exec()" and indicates that a pipe to the
standard stream should be opened.
asyncio.subprocess.STDOUT
Special value that can be used as the *stderr* argument to
"create_subprocess_shell()" and "create_subprocess_exec()" and
indicates that standard error should go into the same handle as
standard output.
asyncio.subprocess.DEVNULL
Special value that can be used as the *stdin*, *stdout* or *stderr*
argument to "create_subprocess_shell()" and
"create_subprocess_exec()" and indicates that the special file
"os.devnull" will be used.
Process
=======
class asyncio.subprocess.Process
A subprocess created by the "create_subprocess_exec()" or the
"create_subprocess_shell()" function.
The API of the "Process" class was designed to be close to the API
of the "subprocess.Popen" class, but there are some differences:
* There is no explicit "poll()" method
* The "communicate()" and "wait()" methods don’t take a *timeout*
parameter: use the "wait_for()" function
* The *universal_newlines* parameter is not supported (only bytes
strings are supported)
* The "wait()" method of the "Process" class is asynchronous
whereas the "wait()" method of the "Popen" class is implemented
as a busy loop.
This class is not thread safe. See also the Subprocess and threads
section.
coroutine wait()
Wait for child process to terminate. Set and return
"returncode" attribute.
This method is a coroutine.
Note: This will deadlock when using "stdout=PIPE" or
"stderr=PIPE" and the child process generates enough output to
a pipe such that it blocks waiting for the OS pipe buffer to
accept more data. Use the "communicate()" method when using
pipes to avoid that.
coroutine communicate(input=None)
Interact with process: Send data to stdin. Read data from
stdout and stderr, until end-of-file is reached. Wait for
process to terminate. The optional *input* argument should be
data to be sent to the child process, or "None", if no data
should be sent to the child. The type of *input* must be bytes.
"communicate()" returns a tuple "(stdout_data, stderr_data)".
If a "BrokenPipeError" or "ConnectionResetError" exception is
raised when writing *input* into stdin, the exception is
ignored. It occurs when the process exits before all data are
written into stdin.
Note that if you want to send data to the process’s stdin, you
need to create the Process object with "stdin=PIPE". Similarly,
to get anything other than "None" in the result tuple, you need
to give "stdout=PIPE" and/or "stderr=PIPE" too.
This method is a coroutine.
Note: The data read is buffered in memory, so do not use this
method if the data size is large or unlimited.
Changed in version 3.4.2: The method now ignores
"BrokenPipeError" and "ConnectionResetError".
send_signal(signal)
Sends the signal *signal* to the child process.
Note: On Windows, "SIGTERM" is an alias for "terminate()".
"CTRL_C_EVENT" and "CTRL_BREAK_EVENT" can be sent to processes
started with a *creationflags* parameter which includes
"CREATE_NEW_PROCESS_GROUP".
terminate()
Stop the child. On Posix OSs the method sends "signal.SIGTERM"
to the child. On Windows the Win32 API function
"TerminateProcess()" is called to stop the child.
kill()
Kills the child. On Posix OSs the function sends "SIGKILL" to
the child. On Windows "kill()" is an alias for "terminate()".
stdin
Standard input stream ("StreamWriter"), "None" if the process
was created with "stdin=None".
stdout
Standard output stream ("StreamReader"), "None" if the process
was created with "stdout=None".
stderr
Standard error stream ("StreamReader"), "None" if the process
was created with "stderr=None".
Warning: Use the "communicate()" method rather than
".stdin.write", ".stdout.read" or ".stderr.read" to avoid
deadlocks due to streams pausing reading or writing and blocking
the child process.
pid
The identifier of the process.
Note that for processes created by the
"create_subprocess_shell()" function, this attribute is the
process identifier of the spawned shell.
returncode
Return code of the process when it exited. A "None" value
indicates that the process has not terminated yet.
A negative value "-N" indicates that the child was terminated by
signal "N" (Unix only).
Subprocess and threads
======================
asyncio supports running subprocesses from different threads, but
there are limits:
* An event loop must run in the main thread
* The child watcher must be instantiated in the main thread, before
executing subprocesses from other threads. Call the
"get_child_watcher()" function in the main thread to instantiate the
child watcher.
The "asyncio.subprocess.Process" class is not thread safe.
See also: The Concurrency and multithreading in asyncio section.
Subprocess examples
===================
Subprocess using transport and protocol
---------------------------------------
Example of a subprocess protocol using to get the output of a
subprocess and to wait for the subprocess exit. The subprocess is
created by the "AbstractEventLoop.subprocess_exec()" method:
import asyncio
import sys
class DateProtocol(asyncio.SubprocessProtocol):
def __init__(self, exit_future):
self.exit_future = exit_future
self.output = bytearray()
def pipe_data_received(self, fd, data):
self.output.extend(data)
def process_exited(self):
self.exit_future.set_result(True)
@asyncio.coroutine
def get_date(loop):
code = 'import datetime; print(datetime.datetime.now())'
exit_future = asyncio.Future(loop=loop)
# Create the subprocess controlled by the protocol DateProtocol,
# redirect the standard output into a pipe
create = loop.subprocess_exec(lambda: DateProtocol(exit_future),
sys.executable, '-c', code,
stdin=None, stderr=None)
transport, protocol = yield from create
# Wait for the subprocess exit using the process_exited() method
# of the protocol
yield from exit_future
# Close the stdout pipe
transport.close()
# Read the output which was collected by the pipe_data_received()
# method of the protocol
data = bytes(protocol.output)
return data.decode('ascii').rstrip()
if sys.platform == "win32":
loop = asyncio.ProactorEventLoop()
asyncio.set_event_loop(loop)
else:
loop = asyncio.get_event_loop()
date = loop.run_until_complete(get_date(loop))
print("Current date: %s" % date)
loop.close()
Subprocess using streams
------------------------
Example using the "Process" class to control the subprocess and the
"StreamReader" class to read from the standard output. The subprocess
is created by the "create_subprocess_exec()" function:
import asyncio.subprocess
import sys
@asyncio.coroutine
def get_date():
code = 'import datetime; print(datetime.datetime.now())'
# Create the subprocess, redirect the standard output into a pipe
create = asyncio.create_subprocess_exec(sys.executable, '-c', code,
stdout=asyncio.subprocess.PIPE)
proc = yield from create
# Read one line of output
data = yield from proc.stdout.readline()
line = data.decode('ascii').rstrip()
# Wait for the subprocess exit
yield from proc.wait()
return line
if sys.platform == "win32":
loop = asyncio.ProactorEventLoop()
asyncio.set_event_loop(loop)
else:
loop = asyncio.get_event_loop()
date = loop.run_until_complete(get_date())
print("Current date: %s" % date)
loop.close()
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