[Python-Dev] deprecate commands.getstatus()

[Guido van Rossum]

On 3/16/07, Titus Brown <titus at caltech.edu> wrote:
> -> > >> What about reimplementing commands.* using subprocess?  Or providing a
> -> > >> commands.*-compatible interface in the subprocess module?
>
> OK, so as I understand it, the next step would be for me to provide a
> patch implementing this, right? Or is this PEP-required (please no...)?

No pep.

> What do people think of this basic interface?
>
>     (status, output) = subprocess.get_status_output(cmd)
>
>     output = subprocess.get_output(cmd)
>
> Here 'status' is the 'returncode' from subprocess.Popen, and 'output'
> would be the combined stdout/stderr.  'commands.getstatus' would be
> removed entirely [0].
>
> This mimics 'commands' fairly closely, while adhering to PEP 8
> guidelines; it's a simple API; and it should be dead easy to implement.

Right. Does it also match the style of the API provided by the
subprocess module?

> It will also have the various advantages people have mentioned:
>
>  * better error trapping;
>  * better post-fork behavior;
>  * multi-platform support;
>
> If this sort of thing goes in, I guess commands.* would then be
> deprecated with a note saying "go look at these similar commands in
> subprocess", right?

Yes. Another intermediate step might be to rewrite the commands module
to call the new APIs in the subprocess module.

> An additional function that I would personally like is:
>
>     (status, output, errout) = subprocess.get_status_output_err(cmd)
>
> although the name is hideous.  I'd like to change 'get_status_output'
> to return a triple, but I'm not sure how big a change that would be
> relative to the expected behavior from the ancestral commands function.

Call it get_status_output_errors and you have my blessings. If at all
possible, get_status_output should *not* just concatenate the output
and errors from this API, but attempt to really *merge* the stdout and
stderr stream so that if they are interleaved they come out in the
right order. That's what the old getstatusoutput() did by putting
'2>&1' around the command.

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)