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Date: Sat, 10 Sep 2011 08:29:02 +1000
From: Cameron Simpson <cs@zip.com.au>
To: Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info>
Subject: Re: killing a script
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On 09Sep2011 22:16, Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> wrote:
| Hans Mulder wrote:
| > On 9/09/11 11:07:24, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
| >> Sure enough, I now have to hit Ctrl-C repeatedly, once per invocation of
| >> script.py. While script.py is running, it receives the Ctrl-C, the
| >> calling process does not.
| > 
| > You misinterpret what you are seeing: the calling process *does* receive
| > the ctrl-C, it just chooses to ignore it. 
| >
| > This is documented behaviour of os.system. 
| 
| Documented where? Neither the on-line documentation nor the function
| docstring mentions anything about it that I can see:
| 
| http://docs.python.org/py3k/library/os.html#os.system

My copy of the 2.7 docs says:

  This is implemented by calling the Standard C function system(), and
  has the same limitations.

and sure enough, "man 3 system" says:

  The system() function hands the argument command to the command
  interpreter sh(1).  The calling process waits for the shell to finish
  executing the command, ignoring SIGINT and SIGQUIT, and blocking
  SIGCHLD.

os.system() is very convenient for simple stuff, but one size does not
fit all. Continuing with the Python docs for os.system:

  On Unix, the return value is the exit status of the process encoded in
  the format specified for wait().

and it is easy to inspect that value for "the subprocess died from a
signal". Not inspecting the exit status correctly will always be an
opportunity for incorrect app behaviour.

Cheers,
-- 
Cameron Simpson <cs@zip.com.au> DoD#743
http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/

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