Popen.communicate() wrapper function

popen-communicate-wrapper.py

from subprocess import Popen, PIPE

def _popen_communicate(cmd_args):
    """Takes a list of arguments and executes a command. 
    Blocks waiting for the execution to finish.
    Returns a tuple containing the stdout and stderr."""

    process = Popen(cmd_args, stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE)
    stdout, stderr = process.communicate()

    if process.returncode != 0:
        raise Exception("'{}' returned error code: {}".format(' '.join(cmd_args), process.returncode))

    return stdout, stderr