now both fastaligns run in parallel, also added some improvements to the code (avoid using shell in popen, class Aligner creates the temporary files instead of doing it externally)

translate_docx.py

@@ -59,12 +59,15 @@ class Aligner():
             fastalign_bin = "./fast_align"
             atools_bin = "./atools"
 
-        self.forward_command = lambda \
-                x: f'{fastalign_bin} -i {x} -d -T {fwd_T} -m {fwd_m} -f {forward_params_path} > {self.forward_alignment_file_path}'
-        self.reverse_command = lambda \
-                x: f'{fastalign_bin} -i {x} -d -T {rev_T} -m {rev_m} -f {reverse_params_path} -r > {self.reverse_alignment_file_path}'
+        self.temp_file_path = os.path.join(temp_folder, "tokenized_sentences.txt")
 
-        self.symmetric_command = f'{atools_bin} -i {self.forward_alignment_file_path} -j {self.reverse_alignment_file_path} -c grow-diag-final-and'
+        self.forward_command = [fastalign_bin, "-i", self.temp_file_path, "-d", "-T", fwd_T, "-m", fwd_m, "-f",
+                                forward_params_path]
+        self.reverse_command = [fastalign_bin, "-i", self.temp_file_path, "-d", "-T", rev_T, "-m", rev_m, "-f",
+                                reverse_params_path, "r"]
+
+        self.symmetric_command = [atools_bin, "-i", self.forward_alignment_file_path, "-j",
+                                  self.reverse_alignment_file_path, "-c", "grow-diag-final-and"]
 
     def __simplify_alignment_file(self, file):
         with fileinput.FileInput(file, inplace=True, backup='.bak') as f:
@@ -82,20 +85,28 @@ class Aligner():
                 T = line.split()[-1]
         return T, m
 
-    def align(self, file):
+    def align(self, original_sentences, translated_sentences):
+        # create temporary file which fastalign will use
+        with open(self.temp_file_path, "w") as temp_file:
+            for original, translated in zip(original_sentences, translated_sentences):
+                temp_file.write(f"{original} ||| {translated}\n")
+
         # generate forward alignment
-        process = Popen(self.forward_command(file), shell=True)
-        process.wait()
-        # generate reverse alignment
-        process = Popen(self.reverse_command(file), shell=True)
-        process.wait()
+        with open(self.forward_alignment_file_path, 'w') as f_out, open(self.reverse_alignment_file_path, 'w') as r_out:
+            fw_process = Popen(self.forward_command, stdout=f_out)
+            # generate reverse alignment
+            r_process = Popen(self.reverse_command, stdout=r_out)
+
+            # wait for both to finish
+            fw_process.wait()
+            r_process.wait()
 
         # for some reason the output file contains more information than needed, remove it
         self.__simplify_alignment_file(self.forward_alignment_file_path)
         self.__simplify_alignment_file(self.reverse_alignment_file_path)
 
         # generate symmetrical alignment
-        process = Popen(self.symmetric_command, shell=True, stdin=PIPE, stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE)
+        process = Popen(self.symmetric_command, stdin=PIPE, stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE)
         process.wait()
 
         # get final alignments and format them
@@ -180,8 +191,6 @@ def generate_alignments(original_paragraphs_with_runs, translated_paragraphs, al
     for f in os.listdir(temp_folder):
         os.remove(os.path.join(temp_folder, f))
 
-    temp_file_path = os.path.join(temp_folder, "tokenized_sentences.txt")
-
     # tokenize the original text by sentence and words while keeping the style
     original_tokenized_sentences_with_style = [tokenize_with_runs(runs, detokenizer) for runs in
                                                original_paragraphs_with_runs]
@@ -194,13 +203,13 @@ def generate_alignments(original_paragraphs_with_runs, translated_paragraphs, al
     translated_tokenized_sentences = [word_tokenize(sentence) for
                                       translated_paragraph in translated_paragraphs for sentence in
                                       sent_tokenize(translated_paragraph)]
+    original_sentences = []
+    translated_sentences = []
+    for original, translated in zip(original_tokenized_sentences_with_style, translated_tokenized_sentences):
+        original_sentences.append(' '.join(item['text'] for item in original))
+        translated_sentences.append(' '.join(translated))
 
-    # write the file that fastalign will use
-    with open(temp_file_path, "w") as out_file:
-        for original, translated in zip(original_tokenized_sentences_with_style, translated_tokenized_sentences):
-            out_file.write(f"{' '.join(item['text'] for item in original)} ||| {' '.join(translated)}\n")
-
-    alignments = aligner.align(temp_file_path)
+    alignments = aligner.align(original_sentences, translated_sentences)
 
     # using the alignments generated by fastalign, we need to copy the style of the original token to the translated one
     translated_sentences_with_style = []