Feed input of MS-DOS interactive executable with a string value

Question

p4.exe is the perforce command line tool (git/cvs/svn like tool). I am trying to launch several ms-dos commands 'p4 resolve' in an python script. because I have a hundred files to resolve.

However I cannot launch 'p4 resolve -m' as I want (which automatically opens my 3-way merge tool on the conflicting files). p4 doesn't accept the m as an executable parameter.

Instead, manually, I must do 'p4 resolve', then wait for the prompt to ask me for an option, and then only type 'm' there.

Do you know in python how I could feed the input since I cannot pass the 'm' parameter to the command line tool p4.exe.

For the moment I use os.system(myDosCommand)

Silas Parker · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-05 14:03:09Z

2

Use the shell option command with subprocess

import subprocess

retcode = subprocess.call(["p4", "resolve", "-m"], shell=True)

answered Mar 5, 2012 at 14:03

Silas Parker

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Commodore Jaeger · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-05 14:21:47Z

2

If you simply want Perforce to auto-merge all pending integrations:

p4 resolve -am

answered Mar 5, 2012 at 14:21

Commodore Jaeger

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Fred Foo · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-13 10:20:43Z

1

Something like...

from subprocess import Popen

resolve = Popen(["p4", "resolve"])
stdout, stderr = resolve.communicate("m")

edited Mar 13, 2012 at 10:20

answered Mar 5, 2012 at 13:25

Fred Foo

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3 Comments

Stephane Rolland Over a year ago

i've chosen yours as the good answer. However, I do have read that "from X import Y" is not the most pythonic way of importing ;-)

Fred Foo Over a year ago

@StephaneRolland: where did you read that? PEP8 makes no problem of it. You must be thinking of from X import *, which I would never write.

Stephane Rolland Over a year ago

oh, I have generalized too much ;-)

sukkerfri · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-05 13:30:44Z

0

Have you tried merely piping the input to the command?

In cmd.exe:

C:\> echo m | p4 resolve

answered Mar 5, 2012 at 13:30

sukkerfri

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Eduardo Ivanec · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-05 13:31:07Z

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If you're using Cygwin you can try pexpect, a pure Python version of the TCL utility expect.

Adapted from the documentation:

child = pexpect.spawn('p4 resolve')
child.expect('Some string that p4 resolve presents')
child.sendline('m')

I don't know of any options not using Cygwin and I found a post about installing Cygwin just to get pexpect to work, so perhaps there isn't a better alternative.

edited Mar 5, 2012 at 13:31

answered Mar 5, 2012 at 13:23

Eduardo Ivanec

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Eduardo Ivanec Over a year ago

It's not supposed to work on Windows. But it does work on Cygwin, I added a note about that.

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