subprocess.call(args)

Run the command described by args. Wait for command to complete, then return the returncode attribute.

Note that, if the returncode is

0 => the command exit with success

!= 0 => command result in failure

# execute 'date +%H:%M:%S' by Python:
>>> import subprocess
>>>
>>> subprocess.call(["date", "+%H:%M:%S"])
0

subprocess.check_output(args)

Run command with arguments and return its output

If the return code was non-zero it raises a CalledProcessError

# execute 'date +%H:%M:%S' and get output:

>>> import subprocess
>>> output = subprocess.check_output(["date", "+%H:%M:%S"])
>>> output
b'15:33:16\n'

# decode the bytestring to ascii
>>> output_ascii = output.decode('ascii')
>>> output_ascii
'15:33:16\n'

# strip leading and trailing spaces:
>>> output_ascii.strip()
'15:33:16'

Open terminal - (MACOS/Unix) example

Open a terminal with a custom profile in the given directory

import subprocess

def open_terminal(profile, directory):
  """open a terminal with a custom profile in the given directory"""
  cmd = "gnome-terminal"
  args = (
    "--window-with-profile",profile,
    "--working-directory",directory
  )

  subprocess.call([cmd, *args])

open_terminal("day", "/data/python_demos/music")

Open VS Code - (MACOS/Unix) example

open VS Code editor and load given directory:

import subprocess

def open_vscode(directory):
  """open VS Code editor and load given directory"""
  cmd = "code"

  subprocess.call([cmd, directory])

open_vscode("/data/python_demos/music")

Open Chrome browser - example

Open Chrome browser in a new window, with the given user profile and loads the specified URLs

This is just a demo. For controlling a browser with Python it's better to use the built-in webbrowser module!

import subprocess

def load_browser(profile, url):
  """open Chrome browser in new window,
     with the given user profile and loads the specified URLs
  """
  cmd = "google-chrome"
  args = "--new-window --profile-directory=" + "'{:s}' {:s}".format(profile, url)

  subprocess.call(cmd + " " + args, shell=True)


urls_to_load = [
  "https://mail.google.com",
  "http://wwwcourses.github.io/ProgressBG-VC2-Python"
]


load_browser("Profile 7",  " ".join(urls_to_load))

Reference

subprocess @python3 docs