os.popen output different from native shell output

[nickname]

On Aug 25, 6:16 am, Nobody <nob... at nowhere.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:36:08 -0700, nickname wrote:
> >        I am a relative newbie to python, I am using os.popen to run an
> > ls command. The output that I get using the read() function is
> > different in look and feel from when I run the ls command natively
> > from the shell (not via python).
>
> As others have pointed out, the default behaviour of ls is different if
> its output is a terminal.
>
> > Is there an easy way to "mirror" the output. When python displays the
> > output, how can it tell the bash shell that some of the entries are
> > directories and they should appear blue on the bash shell, and that
> > everything should not be appearing on 1 column only.
>
> You can get the terminal-style behaviour even when using a pipe with:
>
>         ls -x --color
>
> But why are you reading this information into Python then writing it
> back out to the terminal?
>
> If you're planning on processing the output within Python, both the
> multi-column format and the escape sequences used for colour will make
> such processing awkward.
>
> If you want to enumerate the contents of a directory within Python, use
> os.listdir().
>
> If you want to generate coloured output, use the curses module, e.g.:
>
> #!/usr/bin/env python
>
> import sys
> import curses
>
> curses.setupterm()
> setaf = curses.tigetstr('setaf') or ""
> setab = curses.tigetstr('setab') or ""
> origp = curses.tigetstr('op') or ""
>
> def fg(c):
>     sys.stdout.write(curses.tparm(setaf, c))
>
> def bg(c):
>     sys.stdout.write(curses.tparm(setab, c))
>
> def orig():
>     sys.stdout.write(origp)
>
> # example
> bg(curses.COLOR_BLUE)
> fg(curses.COLOR_YELLOW)
> print "hello, world"
> orig()

wow guys! thanks for all the great leads! this is awesome!

The reason why I want to do this is because I am going to do a little
project. I will write a python script called ls which will log the
time and username and then will show the actual ls output. I want this
to be transparent and so want to throw the ls output (via python)
exactly as it will be in native shell execution.

I know there's history files I can look up, but I just am exploring my
own intermediate-logging-layer the functionality for which is executed
right before the actual command is executed.

Thanks,
-A