Python subprocess, realtime print with COLORS and save stdout

Question

Printing the output of a subprocess while saving the result is not a new problem, and has been answered many times before e.g.: https://stackoverflow.com/a/28319191/5506400 This does not work for me because I am trying to maintain the shell colours printed. E.g. when one goes systemctl status application, its prints running in green. The above-mentioned methods all rely on reading a line one by one from subprocess, but it seems to me by then the colour information is stripped off and lost.

I tried to make an object which tee's off the stdout prints and saves them into a variable:

from subprocess import *
import sys

class Tee():
    def __init__(self):
        self.content = ''
        self.stdout = sys.stdout
        sys.stdout = self
    def __enter__(self):
        return self
    def __exit__(self, *args):
        pass
    def __del__(self):
        sys.stdout = self.stdout
    def write(self, data):
        self.content += data
        self.stdout.write(data)
    def flush(self):
        self.content = ''

with Tee() as tee:
    # Saves print to tee.content
    print("Hello World")

    # This line does not save prints to tee.content    
    run(['apt-get', 'update'])

    # raises an error that tee.fileno is not supported
    run(['systemctl', 'status', 'nginx'], stdout=tee)

    content = tee.content

print("---------------------")
print(content)

But the problem is subprocess's stdout requires an actual file: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2298003/5506400

Is there anyway to print realtime the output of a subprocess, while maintaining the colours, and store the value to a variable (without going through a temp file)?

Answer 1

You can't make it with subprocess, but pty can. pty creates pseudo-terminal so the command being executed detects that it's running with tty and enables color output.

import pty, os

output_bytes = []

def read(fd):
    data = os.read(fd, 1024)
    output_bytes.append(data)
    return data

pty.spawn([command], read)
output = str(output_bytes)
# parse output as you need