os.execl problem on winnt

[Syver Enstad]

> What I want to be able to do is have Python start a external program and
> wait until that program is finished before it continues.

Use the os.system call for the easiest way of obtaining what you want. The
documentation says that the exec functions
replace the process that calls exec.. with the new process, I guess that's
why you're having troubles.

As long as you just want to run a program and wait for it to finish,
os.system will do fine, it searches the path for the process which is often
nice. If you want to do something else while the other process is running
you'll have to use the spawn functions if you're going to stay in the python
std library. The trouble with the spawn.. functions is that they don't
search the path, so under win32 you can use winexec or shellexecute if you
want to do that.