[python] How to use `subprocess` command with pipes

I want to use subprocess.check_output() with ps -A | grep 'process_name'. I tried various solutions but so far nothing worked. Can someone guide me how to do it?

Or you can always use the communicate method on the subprocess objects.

cmd = "ps -A|grep 'process_name'"
ps = subprocess.Popen(cmd,shell=True,stdout=subprocess.PIPE,stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)
output = ps.communicate()[0]
print(output)

The communicate method returns a tuple of the standard output and the standard error.

command = "ps -A | grep 'process_name'"
output = subprocess.check_output(["bash", "-c", command])

See the documentation on setting up a pipeline using subprocess: http://docs.python.org/2/library/subprocess.html#replacing-shell-pipeline

I haven't tested the following code example but it should be roughly what you want:

query = "process_name"
ps_process = Popen(["ps", "-A"], stdout=PIPE)
grep_process = Popen(["grep", query], stdin=ps_process.stdout, stdout=PIPE)
ps_process.stdout.close()  # Allow ps_process to receive a SIGPIPE if grep_process exits.
output = grep_process.communicate()[0]

JKALAVIS solution is good, however I would add an improvement to use shlex instead of SHELL=TRUE. below im grepping out Query times

#!/bin/python
import subprocess
import shlex

cmd = "dig @8.8.4.4 +notcp www.google.com|grep 'Query'"
ps = subprocess.Popen(cmd,shell=True,stdout=subprocess.PIPE,stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)
output = ps.communicate()[0]
print(output)

Using subprocess.run

import subprocess
    
ps = subprocess.run(['ps', '-A'], check=True, capture_output=True)
processNames = subprocess.run(['grep', 'process_name'],
                              input=ps.stdout, capture_output=True)
print(processNames.stdout)

Also, try to use 'pgrep' command instead of 'ps -A | grep 'process_name'

After Python 3.5 you can also use:

    import subprocess

    f = open('test.txt', 'w')
    process = subprocess.run(['ls', '-la'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE, universal_newlines=True)
    f.write(process.stdout)
    f.close()

The execution of the command is blocking and the output will be in process.stdout.

You can try the pipe functionality in sh.py:

import sh
print sh.grep(sh.ps("-ax"), "process_name")