[issue10481] subprocess PIPEs are byte streams

New submission from Glenn Linderman v+python@g.nevcal.com:
While http://bugs.python.org/issue2683 did clarify the fact that the .communicate API takes a byte stream as input, it is easy to miss the implication. Because Python programs start up with stdin as a text stream, it might be good to point out that some action may need to be taken to be sure that the receiving program expects a byte stream, or that the byte stream supplied should be in an encoding that the receiving program is expecting and can decode appropriately.
No mention is presently made in the documentation for .communicate that its output is also a byte stream, and if text will correspond to whatever encoding is used by the sending program.
---------- assignee: docs@python components: Documentation messages: 121869 nosy: docs@python, v+python priority: normal severity: normal status: open title: subprocess PIPEs are byte streams versions: Python 3.2
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Glenn Linderman v+python@g.nevcal.com added the comment:
Maybe it should also be mentioned that p.stdout and p.stderr and p.stdin, when set to be PIPEs, are also byte streams. Of course that is the reason that communicate accepts and produces byte streams.
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Sam Kimbrel added the comment:
I've created a patch that updates the docs to reflect the behavior of communicate() and check_output(), which is that both the "input" argument and stdin/stdout/stderr PIPEs will convert to and from strings when self.univeral_newlines is True and must be bytes otherwise.
---------- keywords: +patch nosy: +sam.kimbrel Added file: http://bugs.python.org/file34834/10481-subprocess-docs.diff
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Changes by A.M. Kuchling amk@amk.ca:
---------- versions: +Python 3.5 -Python 3.2
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Roundup Robot added the comment:
New changeset 267fff541bda by Andrew Kuchling in branch 'default': #10481: describe universal_newlines' effect on communicate()/check_output() output (alternately bytes or strings) http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/267fff541bda
---------- nosy: +python-dev
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A.M. Kuchling added the comment:
Thanks for your patch!
---------- nosy: +akuchling resolution: -> fixed stage: -> committed/rejected status: open -> closed
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participants (4)
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A.M. Kuchling
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Glenn Linderman
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Roundup Robot
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Sam Kimbrel