[Python-3000] os.popen versus subprocess.Popen

[Tim Heaney]

In Python 3.0, it seems that os.popen yields a string, whereas
subprocess.Popen yields bytes

  $ ./python
  Python 3.0a4 (r30a4:62119, Apr 12 2008, 18:15:16)
  [GCC 4.1.3 20070929 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.1.2-16ubuntu2)] on linux2
  Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
  >>> import os, subprocess
  >>> os.popen('date').readline()
  'Sat Apr 12 19:08:05 EDT 2008\n'
  >>> subprocess.Popen(['date'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE).communicate()[0]
  b'Sat Apr 12 19:08:13 EDT 2008\n'

Is this intentional? If so, why should I expect this? Thanks!

Tim