[Python-Dev] deprecate commands.getstatus()

[Titus Brown]

On Tue, Mar 13, 2007 at 04:55:07PM -0700, Guido van Rossum wrote:
-> On 3/13/07, Titus Brown <titus at caltech.edu> wrote:
-> > What about reimplementing commands.* using subprocess?  Or providing a
-> > commands.*-compatible interface in the subprocess module?
-> 
-> What does that buy us?

The simplicity of the commands interface on top of the more functional
subprocess interface, no?  subprocess is very powerful but there isn't
a simple way to get the output.

See http://docs.python.org/lib/node530.html, and see the docs comparing
os.system() with subprocess,

	http://docs.python.org/lib/node537.html

So, if you added 'getstatusoutput' and 'getoutput'-style commands to the
subprocess module, you would

(a) be able to deprecate a module in the stdlib, simplifying it a bit,

and

(b) provide simple commands implementing a common use case for subprocess,
	"run this command and give me the output".  (You can already
	do 'getstatus' with a 'Popen(cmd).wait()'.)

cheers,
--titus