I've written a new popen-like module for Python. This module overcomes
several limitations with the old popen2 module, but also aims to be a
generic module for starting and communicating with processes on POSIX
systems. It can replace several older modules and functions, like:
os.system
os.spawn*
os.popen*
popen2.*
commands.*
This module features:
* Cross-process exceptions: Exceptions happening in the child before the
new process has started to execute are re-raised in the parent. This
means that it's easy to handle exec() failures, for example. With
popen2, it's impossible to detect if the execution failed.
* A hook for executing customized code between fork and exec. This can
be used for, for example, changing uid.
* No implicit call of /bin/sh. This means that there is no need for
escaping dangerous shell meta characters.
* A communicate() method, which makes it easy to send stdin data and
read stdout and stderr data, without risking deadlocks.
* Support for connecting several subprocesses (shell "pipe").
The module is available from
http://cvs.lysator.liu.se/viewcvs/viewcvs.cgi/popen5/?cvsroot=python-popen5,
or via anonymous CVS
(:pserver:anonymous@cvs.lysator.liu.se:/cvsroot/python-popen5).
All feedback is appreciated.
/Peter Åstrand