Evert Rol wrote: >> So, I tried setting COLUMNS equal to 500 (arbitrarily large) prior to >> going into python. It seems to change back to 158 automatically >> however. >> For example, when I go into python, import commands, and execute >> commands.getoutput('set') I find that COLUMNS is back to 158. So, I >> think my problem is that I don't know how to alter the set variable so >> that it will stick long enough for the "ps ax" command to execute >> properly. > > I've had this problem before (setting/altering shell variables when > executing a command from Python, albeit using os.system() instead). > What I'd use is: > commands.getoutput('COLUMNS=500 ps ax') > or similar. In your case, you've been able to solve in another way > (and better, since environment independent, though still > shell/ps-variant dependent), but sometimes one may need to set/change > shell variables, like paths to dynamic libraries. The above should > work (for more variables, just specify them all before the actual > command, whitespace separated). > > Thank you for mentioning that. I'm pretty weak on bash, and had monkeyed around with such things as set COLUMNS=500 on the previous line in the shell program version, but hadn't actually looked up that syntax yet, when I stumbled across the ps parameter that eventually I selected.
Thanks again. ds _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor