Re: [python-win32] reading from console child process

[Chris Maloof]

Niki Spahiev wrote:
Chris Maloof wrote:
Hello,
I'm trying to read the output from a WinXP console application using 
PythonWin -- that is, I start the application as a child process, and I 
want to be able to read the ASCII text in the application's screen.

The child app uses MSDN functions WriteConsoleOutputChar() and 
WriteConsoleOutputAttributes() for output.  Thus I think I need to use 
ReadConsoleOutput() and WriteConsoleInput() to communicate with it, as 
described here: 
http://homepages.tesco.net/~J.deBoynePollard/FGA/capture-console-win32.html . 
Unfortunately these don't seem to be implemented in PyWin32.

Try console module from effbot or use ctypes.
HTH
Niki Spahiev
Thanks for the help!  ctypes ended up working for me, with help from 
win32process where possible.  I'm not sure why the solutions involving popen 
variants failed; I might have missed something easier.  Here's the meat of 
my solution for the archives anyway, though.

import win32process
from ctypes import *
import time
# Constants from winbase.h in .NET SDK
STD_INPUT_HANDLE = c_uint(-10) # (not used here)
STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE = c_uint(-11)
STD_ERROR_HANDLE = c_uint(-12) # (not used here)
startup = win32process.STARTUPINFO()
(hProcess, hThread, dwProcessId, dwThreadId) = \
win32process.CreateProcess("C:\myConsoleApp.exe",
                          "-X",
                          None,
                          None,
                          0,
                          0,
                          None,
                          None,
                          startup)
time.sleep(1) #wait for console to initialize
# Use ctypes to simulate a struct from the Win32 API
class COORD(Structure):
   _fields_ = [("X", c_short),
               ("Y", c_short)]
topleft = COORD(0,0)
CHARS_TO_READ = 200
result = create_string_buffer(CHARS_TO_READ)
count = c_int()
windll.kernel32.AttachConsole(c_uint(dwProcessId))
inHandle = windll.kernel32.GetStdHandle(STD_INPUT_HANDLE)
outHandle = windll.kernel32.GetStdHandle(STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE)
errHandle = windll.kernel32.GetStdHandle(STD_ERROR_HANDLE)
# See Win32 API for definition
windll.kernel32.ReadConsoleOutputCharacterA(outHandle,
                                           result,
                                           CHARS_TO_READ,
                                           topleft,
                                           byref(count))
print result.value
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