popen - reading strings - constructing a list from the strings

[MRAB]

Aytekin Vargun wrote:
> <mailto:python-list at python.org>
> Hello everybody,
> I have a question about the way I use os.popen. I am open to other 
> alternative suggestions like using subprocess or communicate.
> 
> I have an executable (say read_cell_types.exe) that produces string 
> outputs. For example, after one execution I got the following outputs in 
> one line:
> 
> Neurons Microglia Astrocytes
> 
> In another execution, there might be different numbers of strings.
> 
> What I would like to do is to get these strings after running 
> read_cell_types.exe from my python program dynamically  and construct 
> radio buttons from the list of strings. In order to do this I need to 
> construct a list of strings first as in
> 
> ["Neurons" "Microglia" "Astrocytes"]
> 
> Then it is easy to construct the radio buttons.
> 
> When I use the following code
> 
> command = "read_cell_types " + fileName2           
> child = os.popen(command)
> data = child.read()
> allObjects=data
> 
> allObjects (or data) contains the letters of all string words. I think 
> it is probably like ["N" "e" "u" "r"  ...]
> 
> How can I construct ["Neurons" "Microglia" "Astrocytes"] instead?
> 
> I will really appreciate your help.
> Thanks a lot.
> 
> PS: fileName2 is a parameter  that I am passing to read_cell_types.exe
> 
If the words in the string are separated by whitespace then use
allObjects.split().