Running long script in the background

[petercable at gmail.com]

On Feb 6, 5:26 am, "watter... at gmail.com" <watter... at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am trying to write a python cgi that calls a script over ssh, the
> problem is the script takes a very long time to execute so Apache
> makes the CGI time out and I never see any output.  The script is set
> to print a progress report to stdout every 3 seconds but I never see
> any output until the child process is killed.
>
<snip>
>
> Does anybody know a way to make output show in real time?

Try this:

<code>

# test.py
import os
import sys
import time

def command():
    for x in range(5):
        print x
        sys.stdout.flush()
        time.sleep(1)

def main():
    command = 'python -c "import test; test.command()"'
    print 'running: %s' % command
    output = os.popen(command, 'r', 1)
    while True:
        line = output.readline()
        if line == '':
            break
        sys.stdout.write(line)
        sys.stdout.flush()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

</code>

The problem is with using the file-like object returned by popen as an
iterator. It will block until the child process is killed, so just
iterate across it manually.

Pete