Executing a system call

[Jorgen Grahn]

On Sat, 6 Mar 2004 00:06:14 +0530 (IST), Jagarlamudi Jagadeesh <j_jagdeesh at students.iiit.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi All,
> 	
> 	There are so many ways to execute a system call like,
> 		getstatusoutput()
> 
> 		os.system()
> 	
> 		fork()
> 		os.execvp()
> 
> 		using popen

And also os.spawnv*(), which unlike fork/exec work on some non-Unixes.

> 	Of all these, which is the best to use ( interms of speed and 
> resources) ?

It depends ;-) Some of these go through the shell (which may give you features
you want, or features you *don't* want). I'd say the resources wasted on
executing a shell are almost always negligable; you should probably make a
decision based on functionality instead.

/Jorgen

-- 
  // Jorgen Grahn <jgrahn@      ''If All Men Were Brothers,
\X/                algonet.se>    Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?''