How can I send single ssh command to get result string with pexpect?

Question

I am trying to make my code as efficient and simple as possible. I would like to make my pexpect command into 1 line:

Current command (simplified):

import pexpect
...
session=pexpect.spawn( 'ssh  %s@%s'%(un,ip), timeout)
session.expect(prompt, timeout)
session.sendline('ls')
session.expect(prompt)
print session.before

I would like to do this all in my ssh command but I am returning a pexpect object, is there a way to return just the output string?

import pexpect
    ...
    print str(pexpect.spawn( 'ssh  %s@%s ls'%(un,ip), timeout))

Is there a possible way to change the code above to work?

I have to use pexpect or standard python 2.4, not paramiko :(

Answer 1

You want the read() method:

p = pexpect.spawn('ssh  %s@%s ls'%(un,ip), timeout)
print(p.read())