putting text through pager

[Michael Goerz]

Hi,

I'm trying to print some variable through a pager (i.e. 'less') on a
linux system. My attempt was this:


====== snip here ======
import subprocess

def put_through_pag er(displaystrin g):
less_pipe = subprocess.Pope n(\
'less', shell=True, \
stdin=subproces s.PIPE).stdin
less_pipe.write (displaystring)
less_pipe.close ()

def main():
put_through_pag er(longstring)


longstring = """
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,...

http://www.lipsum.com/

"""

main()

====== snip here ======

That doesn't work however: first of all, it only flashes the text for a
fraction of a second, and secondly, after I run the program my terminal
is broken, not echoing whatever I type back to me.

Any suggestions for putting text through a pager from Python? This is
strictly on a linux system, of course.

Thanks,
Michael

[Michael Goerz]

Re: putting text through pager

Michael Goerz wrote, on 03/20/2008 04:43 PM:

Hi,
>
I'm trying to print some variable through a pager (i.e. 'less') on a
linux system. My attempt was this:
>
>
====== snip here ======
import subprocess
>
def put_through_pag er(displaystrin g):
less_pipe = subprocess.Pope n(\
'less', shell=True, \
stdin=subproces s.PIPE).stdin
less_pipe.write (displaystring)
less_pipe.close ()
>
def main():
put_through_pag er(longstring)
>
>
longstring = """
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,...

http://www.lipsum.com/

"""
>
main()
>
====== snip here ======
>
That doesn't work however: first of all, it only flashes the text for a
fraction of a second, and secondly, after I run the program my terminal
is broken, not echoing whatever I type back to me.
>
Any suggestions for putting text through a pager from Python? This is
strictly on a linux system, of course.
>
Thanks,
Michael

Using a tempfile seems to be a good solution:

def put_through_pag er(displaystrin g):
(temp_fd, tempname) = tempfile.mkstem p(".mail")
temp_fh = os.fdopen(temp_ fd, "w")
temp_fh.write(d isplaystring)
temp_fh.close()
os.system("less %s" % tempname)
os.unlink(tempn ame)