Exec a shell command in Go

Question

I\'m looking to execute a shell command in Go and get the resulting output as a string in my program. I saw the Rosetta Code version:

package main
import \"f         


        

Answer 1

Here is a simple function that will run your command and capture the error, stdout, and stderr for you to inspect. You can easily see anything that might go wrong or be reported back to you.

// RunCMD is a simple wrapper around terminal commands
func RunCMD(path string, args []string, debug bool) (out string, err error) {

    cmd := exec.Command(path, args...)

    var b []byte
    b, err = cmd.CombinedOutput()
    out = string(b)

    if debug {
        fmt.Println(strings.Join(cmd.Args[:], " "))

        if err != nil {
            fmt.Println("RunCMD ERROR")
            fmt.Println(out)
        }
    }

    return
}

You can use it like this (Converting a media file):

args := []string{"-y", "-i", "movie.mp4", "movie_audio.mp3", "INVALID-ARG!"}
output, err := RunCMD("ffmpeg", args, true)

if err != nil {
    fmt.Println("Error:", output)
} else {
    fmt.Println("Result:", output)
}

I've used this with Go 1.2-1.7