[Python-Dev] Issue 13524: subprocess on Windows (original) (raw)

Nick Coghlan ncoghlan at gmail.com
Mon Dec 5 10:41:18 CET 2011

On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 7:01 PM, Tim Golden <mail at timgolden.me.uk> wrote:

We could probably do with a HOWTO (or blog post or whatever) on using subprocess on Windows, not least because a fair amount of the docs are Unix-centric and actually very slightly confusing for naive Windows-based developers.

I think my proposal now is: do nothing. I'm aware that Nick Coghlan has been making fairly extensive changes to the subprocess docs recently and I don't I can propose anything on this matter which amounts to more than shuffling the pieces around.

The subprocess module could probably do with a HOWTO, full stop. Subprocess invocation is something where platform details are always going to matter a lot, and there are subtle details even on Unix that are confusing (e.g. I have a command in my current project that I've only managed to get working by running it via the shell - I still don't know why direct invocation of the binary with the appropriate arguments doesn't work).

At the moment, we're still trying to cram an entire essay on subprocess invocation into the subprocess.Popen constructor definition, which is far from optimal.

Cheers, Nick.

-- Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia

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