"str.split()" method returns "[0]" instead of splitting the string

Question

I am trying to split a string taken from the cmd using os.system but no matter what I split by it always returns [0].

import os

username = os.system("whoami /user")
username = (str(username).split(' '))

print(username)

For some reason the original output is treated as an integer but that doesn't seem to matter as it is converted to a string.

string = "This is a string"
print(string.split(' '))

This works as intended though!

If you print out `str(username)`, what do you get? That might help you finding out where the issue lies. — HilbertB, Dec 09 '20 at 23:29
You're getting the return code of the command (0),not the stdout of the command — OneCricketeer, Dec 09 '20 at 23:30

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 09 '20 at 23:30

os.system returns the exit code of the command, not the output. See this question for more detail (and code that does actually get the output). You don't need to run a command to get the username though, just use getpass.getuser():

import getpass
username = getpass.getuser()

"str.split()" method returns "[0]" instead of splitting the string

1 Answers1