how to test for a dependency

[Darren Dale]

Dennis Benzinger wrote:

> Darren Dale schrieb:
>> Hello,
>> 
>> I would like to test that latex is installed on a windows, mac or linux
>> machine. What is the best way to do this? This should work:
>> 
>> if os.system('latex -v'):
>>     print 'please install latex'
>> 
>> but I dont actually want the latex version information to print to
>> screen. I tried redirecting sys.stdout to a file, but that doesnt help.
>> Is there a better way to do this in a cross-platform friendly way?
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Darren
> 
> 
> I didn't try it, but you could use the subprocess module
> <http://python.org/doc/2.4.2/lib/module-subprocess.html>.
> Create a Popen object with stdout = PIPE so that a pipe to the child
> process is created and connected to the client's stdout.


Thanks for the suggestion, that would probably work. Unfortunately, I need
to support Python 2.3 for some time to come.

I wonder, will this work across platforms?

if os.system('latex -v > temp.log'): print 'install latex'