Enables to run subprocess commands in a different thread with TIMEOUT option!

bash.py

#! /usr/bin/env python
import threading
import subprocess
import traceback
import shlex


class Command(object):
    """
    Enables to run subprocess commands in a different thread with TIMEOUT option.

    Based on jcollado's solution:
    http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1191374/subprocess-with-timeout/4825933#4825933
    """
    command = None
    process = None
    status = None
    output, error = '', ''

    def __init__(self, command):
        if isinstance(command, basestring):
            command = shlex.split(command)
        self.command = command

    def run(self, timeout=None, **kwargs):
        """ Run a command then return: (status, output, error). """
        def target(**kwargs):
            try:
                self.process = subprocess.Popen(self.command, **kwargs)
                self.output, self.error = self.process.communicate()
                self.status = self.process.returncode
            except:
                self.error = traceback.format_exc()
                self.status = -1
        # default stdout and stderr
        if 'stdout' not in kwargs:
            kwargs['stdout'] = subprocess.PIPE
        if 'stderr' not in kwargs:
            kwargs['stderr'] = subprocess.PIPE
        # thread
        thread = threading.Thread(target=target, kwargs=kwargs)
        thread.start()
        thread.join(timeout)
        if thread.is_alive():
            self.process.terminate()
            thread.join()
        return self.status, self.output, self.error

I get:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "./subprocess_timeout.py", line 34, in
command.run(timeout=3)
File "./subprocess_timeout.py", line 31, in run
return self.process.returncode
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'returncode'

Pass shell=True if you want Popen to execute the program in a shell. Beware of maclicious input though!

Example:

command = Command("echo 'Process started'; sleep 2; echo 'Process finished'")
command.run(timeout=1, shell=True)

command = Command('ping www.redicecn.com -t')
print command.run(timeout=1, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, shell=True)

Not work on Window7, Python 2.7.

all these complains should be satisfied now with the latest revision.

it should also be able to run commands even though no shell=True argument provided, which is done by shlex splitting..

I use the cmd to start a java program. I find that the thread will keep running after thread.join()

Now we can use timeout in Ubuntu 10.04 and later versions happily.

Solution.java is

class Solution{
      public static void main(String [] args){ 
              do
                    System.out.println("Helloo");
              while(true);
      }
}

and

command = Command("java Solution")
print command.run(timeout=1, shell=True ,stderr=subprocess.STDOUT, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)

Timeout does not works !