Any way to execute a piped command in Python using subprocess module, without using shell=True?

Question

I want to run a piped command line linux/bash command from Python, which first tars files, and then splits the tar file. The command would look like something this in bash:<

Answer 1

If you want to avoid using shell=True, you can manually use subprocess pipes.

from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
p1 = Popen(["tar", "-cvf", "-", "path_to_archive"], stdout=PIPE)
p2 = Popen(["split", "-b", "20m", "-d", "-a", "5", "-", "'archive.tar.split'"], stdin=p1.stdout, stdout=PIPE)
output = p2.communicate()[0]

Note that if you do not use the shell, you will not have access to expansion of globbing characters like *. Instead you can use the glob module.