ipython: Can I provide input to a shell command

Question

Can I execute a shell command that requires input in ipython and/or an ipython notebook?

When I execute such a command, I see it\'s prompt, but no apparent way to p

Answer 1

Reposting as an answer, with a bit more detail:

No, it's a long standing issue that's really difficult to resolve: github.com/ipython/ipython/issues/514

The issue is roughly that our architecture can't tell when a process is waiting for input, so it doesn't know to prompt the user for input.

You may be able to use pexpect and raw_input to simulate this for specific programs. I.e. if you say what the prompt looks like, it spots that in the output, and asks the user for input to send back to the process. E.g. for Python:

import pexpect
p = pexpect.spawn('python')
while True:
    try:
        p.expect('\n>>> ')
        print(p.before)
        p.sendline(raw_input('>>> '))
    except pexpect.EOF:
        break

I've just given this a brief test - it works, but it's fairly rough. The concept could be improved.