A non-blocking read on a subprocess.PIPE in Python

I'm using the subprocess module to start a subprocess and connect to its output stream (standard output). I want to be able to execute non-blocking reads on its standard output. Is there a way to make .readline non-blocking or to check if there is data on the stream before I invoke .readline? I'd like this to be portable or at least work under Windows and Linux.

Here is how I do it for now (it's blocking on the .readline if no data is available):

p = subprocess.Popen('myprogram.exe', stdout = subprocess.PIPE)
output_str = p.stdout.readline()

fcntl, select, asyncproc won't help in this case.

A reliable way to read a stream without blocking regardless of operating system is to use Queue.get_nowait():

import sys
from subprocess import PIPE, Popen
from threading  import Thread

try:
    from queue import Queue, Empty
except ImportError:
    from Queue import Queue, Empty  # python 2.x

ON_POSIX = 'posix' in sys.builtin_module_names

def enqueue_output(out, queue):
    for line in iter(out.readline, b''):
        queue.put(line)
    out.close()

p = Popen(['myprogram.exe'], stdout=PIPE, bufsize=1, close_fds=ON_POSIX)
q = Queue()
t = Thread(target=enqueue_output, args=(p.stdout, q))
t.daemon = True # thread dies with the program
t.start()

# ... do other things here

# read line without blocking
try:  line = q.get_nowait() # or q.get(timeout=.1)
except Empty:
    print('no output yet')
else: # got line
    # ... do something with line

I have often had a similar problem; Python programs I write frequently need to have the ability to execute some primary functionality while simultaneously accepting user input from the command line (stdin). Simply putting the user input handling functionality in another thread doesn't solve the problem because readline() blocks and has no timeout. If the primary functionality is complete and there is no longer any need to wait for further user input I typically want my program to exit, but it can't because readline() is still blocking in the other thread waiting for a line. A solution I have found to this problem is to make stdin a non-blocking file using the fcntl module:

import fcntl
import os
import sys

# make stdin a non-blocking file
fd = sys.stdin.fileno()
fl = fcntl.fcntl(fd, fcntl.F_GETFL)
fcntl.fcntl(fd, fcntl.F_SETFL, fl | os.O_NONBLOCK)

# user input handling thread
while mainThreadIsRunning:
      try: input = sys.stdin.readline()
      except: continue
      handleInput(input)

In my opinion this is a bit cleaner than using the select or signal modules to solve this problem but then again it only works on UNIX...

Python 3.4 introduces new provisional API for asynchronous IO -- asyncio module.

The approach is similar to twisted-based answer by @Bryan Ward -- define a protocol and its methods are called as soon as data is ready:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
import asyncio
import os

class SubprocessProtocol(asyncio.SubprocessProtocol):
    def pipe_data_received(self, fd, data):
        if fd == 1: # got stdout data (bytes)
            print(data)

    def connection_lost(self, exc):
        loop.stop() # end loop.run_forever()

if os.name == 'nt':
    loop = asyncio.ProactorEventLoop() # for subprocess' pipes on Windows
    asyncio.set_event_loop(loop)
else:
    loop = asyncio.get_event_loop()
try:
    loop.run_until_complete(loop.subprocess_exec(SubprocessProtocol, 
        "myprogram.exe", "arg1", "arg2"))
    loop.run_forever()
finally:
    loop.close()

See "Subprocess" in the docs.

There is a high-level interface asyncio.create_subprocess_exec() that returns Process objects that allows to read a line asynchroniosly using StreamReader.readline() coroutine (with async/await Python 3.5+ syntax):

#!/usr/bin/env python3.5
import asyncio
import locale
import sys
from asyncio.subprocess import PIPE
from contextlib import closing

async def readline_and_kill(*args):
    # start child process
    process = await asyncio.create_subprocess_exec(*args, stdout=PIPE)

    # read line (sequence of bytes ending with b'\n') asynchronously
    async for line in process.stdout:
        print("got line:", line.decode(locale.getpreferredencoding(False)))
        break
    process.kill()
    return await process.wait() # wait for the child process to exit


if sys.platform == "win32":
    loop = asyncio.ProactorEventLoop()
    asyncio.set_event_loop(loop)
else:
    loop = asyncio.get_event_loop()

with closing(loop):
    sys.exit(loop.run_until_complete(readline_and_kill(
        "myprogram.exe", "arg1", "arg2")))

readline_and_kill() performs the following tasks:

• start subprocess, redirect its stdout to a pipe
• read a line from subprocess' stdout asynchronously
• kill subprocess
• wait for it to exit

Each step could be limited by timeout seconds if necessary.

Try the asyncproc module. For example:

import os
from asyncproc import Process
myProc = Process("myprogram.app")

while True:
    # check to see if process has ended
    poll = myProc.wait(os.WNOHANG)
    if poll != None:
        break
    # print any new output
    out = myProc.read()
    if out != "":
        print out

The module takes care of all the threading as suggested by S.Lott.