Hi. I've not been working with Python very long and have run into a puzzling
thing. I'm working on a program that needs to identify the filetype of files
without extensions. Using the file command in the shell works fantastic, as in:
rob...@ubuntu:~$ file -b linuxlogotag
JPEG image data, JFIF standard 1.01
I want to be able to perform the same task in a program for batch processing.
After a bit of research, I found that I can execute the shell command from
within a Python program using:
import os
os.system('file -b /home/robert/linuxlogotag')
This also works fine. The problem is that when I try to replace the hard coded
path/name with a string variable for looping, the results are not the same as
the shell's. Here's the modified code I'm using for testing (the original code
is from Bogdan's blog at http://bogdan.org.ua/).
import os, glob
path = '/home/robert'
for infile in glob.glob( os.path.join(path, '*.*') ):
testCommand = "'file -b " + infile + "'"
print testCommand,
test = os.system(testCommand)
print test
The code does indeed step through all the files in the directory and the
testCommand string constructs properly. Yet, the output is not the same as
shell results. All files, regardless of type, simply output the number 32512,
with no description.
I have searched forums, read the man file and perused several Python
references and have not been able to find the answer. Why does the same command
yield different results, depending on how it's run? Any education is greatly
appreciated.
Linux 2.6 (kubuntu 8.04)
Python 2.5.2
file command 4.21
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