Redirecting stdout to "nothing" in python

user_565595 0
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I have a large project consisting of sufficiently large number of modules, each printing something to the standard output. Now as the project has grown in size, there are large no. of print statements printing a lot on the std out which has made the program considerably slower.

So, I now want to decide at runtime whether or not to print anything to the stdout. I cannot make changes in the modules as there are plenty of them. (I know I can redirect the stdout to a file but even this is considerably slow.)

So my question is how do I redirect the stdout to nothing ie how do I make the print statement do nothing?

# I want to do something like this.
sys.stdout = None         # this obviously will give an error as Nonetype object does not have any write method.

Currently the only idea I have is to make a class which has a write method (which does nothing) and redirect the stdout to an instance of this class.

class DontPrint(object):
    def write(*args): pass

dp = DontPrint()
sys.stdout = dp

Is there an inbuilt mechanism in python for this? Or is there something better than this?

python-2.7 python
15 Answers

If you're in python 3.4 or higher, there's a simple and safe solution using the standard library:

import contextlib

with contextlib.redirect_stdout(None):
  print("This won't print!")
user_25334670

You can just mock it.

import mock

sys.stdout = mock.MagicMock()
user_96485850 
sys.stdout = None

It is OK for print() case. But it can cause an error if you call any method of sys.stdout, e.g. sys.stdout.write().

There is a note in docs:

Under some conditions stdin, stdout and stderr as well as the original values stdin, stdout and stderr can be None. It is usually the case for Windows GUI apps that aren’t connected to a console and Python apps started with pythonw.

user_20394710

Supplement to iFreilicht's answer - it works for both python 2 & 3.

import sys

class NonWritable:
    def write(self, *args, **kwargs):
        pass

class StdoutIgnore:
    def __enter__(self):
        self.stdout_saved = sys.stdout
        sys.stdout = NonWritable()
        return self

    def __exit__(self, *args):
        sys.stdout = self.stdout_saved

with StdoutIgnore():
    print("This won't print!")
user_28401340

There are a number of good answers in the flow, but here is my Python 3 answer (when sys.stdout.fileno() isn't supported anymore) :

import os
import sys
oldstdout = os.dup(1)
oldstderr = os.dup(2)
oldsysstdout = sys.stdout
oldsysstderr = sys.stderr

# Cancel all stdout outputs (will be lost) - optionally also cancel stderr
def cancel_stdout(stderr=False):
    sys.stdout.flush()
    devnull = open('/dev/null', 'w')
    os.dup2(devnull.fileno(), 1)
    sys.stdout = devnull
    if stderr:
        os.dup2(devnull.fileno(), 2)
        sys.stderr = devnull

# Redirect all stdout outputs to a file - optionally also redirect stderr
def reroute_stdout(filepath, stderr=False):
    sys.stdout.flush()
    file = open(filepath, 'w')
    os.dup2(file.fileno(), 1)
    sys.stdout = file
    if stderr:
        os.dup2(file.fileno(), 2)
        sys.stderr = file

# Restores stdout to default - and stderr
def restore_stdout():
    sys.stdout.flush()
    sys.stdout.close()
    os.dup2(oldstdout, 1)
    os.dup2(oldstderr, 2)
    sys.stdout = oldsysstdout
    sys.stderr = oldsysstderr

To use it:

  • Cancel all stdout and stderr outputs with:

    cancel_stdout(stderr=True)

  • Route all stdout (but not stderr) to a file:

    reroute_stdout('output.txt')

  • To restore stdout and stderr:

    restore_stdout()

user_182804990

Will add some example to the numerous answers here:

import argparse
import contextlib

class NonWritable:
    def write(self, *args, **kwargs):
        pass

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='my program')
parser.add_argument("-p", "--param", help="my parameter", type=str, required=True)

#with contextlib.redirect_stdout(None): # No effect as `argparse` will output to `stderr`
#with contextlib.redirect_stderr(None): # AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'write'
with contextlib.redirect_stderr(NonWritable): # this works!
    args = parser.parse_args()

The normal output would be:

>python TEST.py
usage: TEST.py [-h] -p PARAM
TEST.py: error: the following arguments are required: -p/--param
user_38684540

If you don't want to deal with resource-allocation nor rolling your own class, you may want to use TextIO from Python typing. It has all required methods stubbed for you by default.

import sys
from typing import TextIO

sys.stdout = TextIO()
user_101002050

I use this. Redirect stdout to a string, which you subsequently ignore. I use a context manager to save and restore the original setting for stdout.

from io import StringIO
...
with StringIO() as out:
    with stdout_redirected(out):
        # Do your thing

where stdout_redirected is defined as:

from contextlib import contextmanager

@contextmanager
def stdout_redirected(new_stdout):
    save_stdout = sys.stdout
    sys.stdout = new_stdout
    try:
        yield None
    finally:
        sys.stdout = save_stdout
user_30625080
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