[Python-Dev] PEP 324: popen5 - New POSIX process module

[John Williams]

This PEP looks fantastic to me; I've often wanted a better set of
primitives for working with external processes, and your PEP has just
about everything I've ever wanted.

I do have some minor nits to pick, though:

- The preexec_args argument is extraneous considering how easy it is to
use a lambda construct to bind arguments to a function.  Consider:

  Popen(..., preexec_fn=foo, preexec_args=(bar,baz))

vs.

  Popen(..., preexec_fn=lambda: foo(bar,baz))

- Rather than passing argv0 as a named argument, what about passing in
the program to execute instead?  It would simplify code like this:

  Popen(child_program, *child_args[1:], argv0=child_args[0])

into this

  Popen(*child_args, program=child_program)

Of course I'm not suggesting you change the default behavior of taking
argv0 *and* the program to execute from the first positional argument.

- The defaults for close_fds and universal_newlines should be False
rather than 0; this would make it clear from reading the synopsis that
these arguments are boolean-valued.

- The poll() method and returncode attribute aren't both needed. I like
returncode's semantics better since it gives more information and it
avoids using -1 as a magic number.

- Rather than raising a PopenException for incorrect arguments, I would
think that raising ValueError or TypeError would be more in line with
users' expectations.

- How does this communicate() method interact with I/O redirection?

- As you and others have mentioned, this API needs a better name than
popen5; I like "process" a lot better.

- Would you consider adding an example of how to chain processes
together into a pipeline? You say this is possible, and I'm assuming
that's what the PIPE constant is for, but I'd like to see it written out
to make sure I'm understanding it correctly.