Python sh Package

Was listening to Late Night Linux and sh was mentioned. This looks like a good replacement for subprocess though this will only work with Unix-like systems and not Windows though I would think it will work with WSL.

Below is the summary from sh’s website.

sh is a full-fledged subprocess replacement for Python 3.8 - 3.11, PyPy that allows you to call any program as if it were a function:

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from sh import ifconfig
print(ifconfig("wlan0"))

Output:

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wlan0   Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:00:00:00:00:00
        inet addr:192.168.1.100  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
        inet6 addr: ffff::ffff:ffff:ffff:fff/64 Scope:Link
        UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
        RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
        TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
        collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
        RX bytes:0 (0 GB)  TX bytes:0 (0 GB)

Note that these aren’t Python functions, these are running the binary commands on your system by dynamically resolving your $PATH, much like Bash does, and then wrapping the binary in a function. In this way, all the programs on your system are easily available to you from within Python.