Pipe input to Python program and later get input from user

Question

Let\'s say I want to pipe input to a Python program, and then later get input from the user, on the command line.

echo http://example.com/image.jpg | python          


        

Answer 1

There isn't a general solution to this problem. The best resource seems to be this mailing list thread.

Basically, piping into a program connects the program's stdin to that pipe, rather than to the terminal.

The mailing list thread has a couple of relatively simple solutions for *nix:

Open /dev/tty to replace sys.stdin:

sys.stdin = open('/dev/tty')
a = raw_input('Prompt: ')

Redirect stdin to another file handle when you run your script, and read from that:

sys.stdin = os.fdopen(3)
a = raw_input('Prompt: ')
$ (echo -n test | ./x.py) 3<&0

as well as the suggestion to use curses. Note that the mailing list thread is ancient so you may need to modify the solution you pick.