Inquiry regarding the name of subprocess.Popen class

[Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch]

On Tue, 02 Sep 2008 11:39:09 -0400, Derek Martin wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 02, 2008 at 01:57:26PM +0000, Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch
> wrote:
>> > I would argue that they don't represent processes at all; the object
>> > is a set of files which connect the standard I/O streams of a
>> > subprocess to its parent, and methods to operate on those files.
>> 
>> And the process' ID, an attribute with the process' return code, a
>> method to wait until the process is finished and file objects to
>> communicate with the process.
> 
> The name popen is an abbreviation of "pipe open" -- the function, and
> the class, open pipes to communicate with another process.  What you
> said is correct; however there are numerous other ways to open
> subprocesses.  The focus of popen is the communication aspect -- the
> opening and control of the pipes -- not the subprocess.  That's the key
> difference between popen() and all the other methods of starting a
> subprocess.

But I'm not talking about the `popen()` function but the 
`subprocess.Popen` class.

>> > The C library's popen() function, on which this class is based,
>> > provides a means to open a file and connect it to the standard steams
>> > of a subprocess, making it more closely analogous to what the Popen
>> > class does/provides.  As such, "Popen" is a better name to describe
>> > this object than "subprocess" would be.
>> 
>> Is strongly disagree.  The class provides an interface to start and
>> communicate with a `Subprocess`.  Instances stand for processes.
> 
> There's more than one way to look at it.  You can disagree all you like,
> but your interpretation disagrees with the historical intent of popen.

That's why I think the name `Popen` is not so good for it.  Because it 
does more than `popen()` and if it is called `Subprocess` or just 
`Process` then it would be merely an implementation detail, that the 
`popen()` function is called at some point.  If it is at all, because 
`popen()` on C level can just open a pipe in *one* direction.

> Note that in all of these links that talk about popen, the focus is on
> opening pipes or file objects, not on subprocesses:
> 
> http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/popen.html
> http://docs.python.org/lib/os-newstreams.html http://us3.php.net/popen
> http://docs.hp.com/en/B9106-90010/popen.3S.html
> http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch07s02.html

And all of the links talk about the `popen()` function, not about the 
functionality the `Popen` class provides.  Which is much more than that 
simple pipe `popen()` returns.

> The Linux man page unfortunately copies (verbatim) the FreeBSD man page,
> which gets it wrong.  You can not open a process, but you can definitely
> open a pipe.

Ah, when their terminology doesn't match yours, they must get it 
wrong.  ;-)

Ciao,
	Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch