How to run a subprocess with Python, wait for it to exit and get the full stdout as a string?

I am using the following construct, although you might want to avoid shell=True. This gives you the output and error message for any command, and the error code as well:

process = subprocess.Popen(cmd, shell=True,
                           stdout=subprocess.PIPE, 
                           stderr=subprocess.PIPE)

# wait for the process to terminate
out, err = process.communicate()
errcode = process.returncode