Best Way of redirecting output to a VTE terminal

Question

Which is the best way of redirect the output of a command to a VTE terminal?

i came with this idea:

On the VTE execute:

tty > /usr/tmp/terminal_number    

then read the file from the python program:

with open('/usr/tmp/terminal_number', 'r') as f:
    self.VTE_redirect_path=f.readline()

then execute the bash commands, for exemple:

os.system('''echo "foo" >  {0}'''.format(self.VTE_redirect_path))

The problem of this method is that the file terminal_number containing /dev/pts/# needs to be refreshed. Also i don't really like the idea of having to create files to communicate. Is there any direct solution?

Answer 1

In VTE you use terminal.feed("string")

See vte_terminal_feed.

With python Popen is the suggested method to execute commands. If you are wanting to use commands then you should do this.

#Uncomment the next line to get the print() function of python 3
#from __future__ import print_function
import os
import subprocess
from subprocess import Popen
command = "echo \"something\""
env = os.environ.copy()
try:
    po = Popen(command, shell=True, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stdin=subprocess.PIPE,
        universal_newlines=True, env=env)
    po.wait()
    output, error_output = po.communicate()

    if po.returncode:
        print(error_output)
    else:
        print(output)

except OSError as e:
    print('Execution failed:', e, file=sys.stderr)

If you want to use gtk with gtk vte then do this instead.

#place the following in a method of a vte instance
env = os.environ.copy()
try:
    po = Popen(command, shell=True, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stdin=subprocess.PIPE,
        universal_newlines=True, env=env)
    po.wait()
    output, error_output = po.communicate()

    if po.returncode:
        print(error_output)
    else:
        self.feed(output) #here you're printing to your terminal.

except OSError as e:
    print('Execution failed:', e, file=sys.stderr)

For the finest control in a regular terminal you can try the cmd module. This will require that you produce your own prompt so it is a more specific option to get what you want.