Calling an external command from Python

This example will show you how to call an external command from Unix shell or Windows command prompt in a python script.

We need to use the subprocess module in python.

import subprocess
subprocess.run(["ls", "-l"])

For old versions, we need to use the call method.

import subprocess
subprocess.call(["ls", "-l"])

The subprocess module allows us to spawn new processes and connect to their input/output/error pipes, and obtain their return codes.