[Python-Dev] Re: [Python-checkins] CVS: python/dist/src/Lib/test/output test_popen2,1.2,1.3

[Skip Montanaro]

    Guido> How about popen4?  Or is that Windows specific?

This is going to sound really dumb, but for all N where N >= 2, how many
popenN routines are there?  Do they represent a subclass of rabbits?  Until
the thread about Windows and os.popen2 started, I, living in a dream world
where my view of libc approximated 4.2BSD, wasn't even aware any popenN
routines existed.  In fact, on my Mandrake box that seems to still be the
case:

    % man -k popen
    popen, pclose (3)    - process I/O
    % nm -a /usr/lib/libc.a | egrep popen
    iopopen.o:
    00000188 T _IO_new_popen
    00000188 W _IO_popen
    00000000 a iopopen.c
    00000188 T popen

In fact, the os module documentation only describes popen, not popenN.

Where'd all these other popen variants come from?  Where can I find them
documented online?

Skip