subprocess.check_output() doesn't seem to exist (Python 2.6.5)

Question

I've been reading the Python documentation about the subprocess module (see here) and it talks about a subprocess.check_output() command which seems to be exactly what I need.

However, when I try and use it I get an error that it doesn't exist, and when I run dir(subprocess) it is not listed.

I am running Python 2.6.5, and the code I have used is below:

import subprocess
subprocess.check_output(["ls", "-l", "/dev/null"])

Does anyone have any idea why this is happening?

Answer 1

It was introduced in 2.7 See the docs.

Use subprocess.Popen if you want the output:

>>> import subprocess
>>> output = subprocess.Popen(['ls', '-l'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE).communicate()[0]