RetroSearch Browse

Wed Aug 27 18:43:25 CEST 2008 · https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2008-August/082047.html

On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 8:08 PM, Mark Hammond <mhammond at skippinet.com.au> wrote:
> Guido quotes a colleague:
>
>> """
>> Given a straightforward command list like:
>>
>>     cmd = ['svn', 'ls', 'http://rietveld.googlecode.com/svn/trunk']
>>
>> You apparently cannot pass this list to any subprocess function
>> (subprocess.call() or otherwise) with a set of arguments that allow it
>> to "just work" on both Windows and non-Windows systems.
>>
>> If you call:
>>
>>     subprocess.call(cmd, shell=False)
>>
>> Then it works on Linux, but fails on Windows because it does not
>> perform the Windows %PATHEXT% search that allows it to find that
>> "svn.exe" is the actual executable to be invoked.
>
> I can't reproduce this as described.

Which Windows version? This sounds like one of those things that could
well vary by Windows version; if it works for you in Vista it may well
be broken in XP. It could also vary by other setup parameters besides
PATHEXT.

>>>> subprocess.call(['svn', 'ls'], shell=False)
> svn: '.' is not a working copy
> 1
>
> The reason this works is that Windows itself (CreateProcess) has support
> both for implied '.exe' extensions and searching $PATH.  Thus, PATHEXT
> handling isn't required for executables.
>
> I *can* reproduce with another extension - eg, 'svn.py' - for this test I
> had a 'foo.py' on my PATH (but not in the cwd), and .py in PATHEXT.
>
>>>> import subprocess
>>>> subprocess.call(['foo'], shell=False)
> ... fails
>>>> subprocess.call(['foo'], shell=True)
> Hello
> 0
>
> So I can't see this problem for 'svn.exe' and at face value the behaviour on
> Windows looks quite correct - you *do* need the shell for this functionality
> on Windows (in the same way you would to execute a .bat file, for example)
>
>> If you call:
>>
>>     subprocess.call(cmd, shell=True)
>>
>> Then it works on Windows (it finds the "svn.exe" executable), but it
>> fails on Linux because it *only* executes the first argument in the
>> list ("svn") and does not pass the remaining arguments in the list to
>> the "svn" invocation.
>
> It sounds like in this particular example at least, this behaviour on Linux
> is the problem?

I think so yes.

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)

Home - News ( United States | United Kingdom | Italy | Germany ) - Football scores

Showing content from https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2008-August/082047.html below:

[Python-Dev] subprocess insufficiently platform-independent?