Capturing stdout in Real Time from Command Execution

In the realm of developing chatbots capable of executing commands, a common requirement is the ability to retrieve and display the standard output (stdout) of executed scripts within the chat interface. However, challenges arise when attempting to retrieve stdout in real time.

The issue lies in the traditional approach, which collects all the stdout and returns it as a single response. To overcome this, we need a way to continuously capture and stream the stdout as the script executes.

One solution involves utilizing pipes to facilitate real-time communication between the script and the chat channel. Here's a Python code snippet that demonstrates how to do this:

import os
import subprocess

def reboot(command):
    process = subprocess.Popen(command, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, universal_newlines=True)
    for line in process.stdout:
        yield line

if __name__ == "__main__":
    command = ["python", "test.py"]
    for line in reboot(command):
        print(line)

In this code, the subprocess.Popen() function is used to execute the specified command. The stdout parameter is set to subprocess.PIPE to create a pipe for the stdout output. The universal_newlines=True argument ensures that the output is returned in text format rather than bytes.

The for loop iterates over the lines of the stdout output in real time, allowing you to stream them into the chat channel. This approach provides a continuous method for capturing and displaying stdout, meeting the requirement for real-time execution.