[Python-Dev] 'commands' module on Win32

[Tim Peters]

[Nick Coghlan]
> ...
> Are there any objections to changing this module so that only
> getstatus() is marked as Unix specific?

-0.  It works on Unix.  On Windows you have to distinguish among
command.com systems (95/98/ME), cmd.exe systems (NT/2K/XP), and
systems where the user installed their own COMSPEC shell.  The
command.com systems can't redirect stderr, and always return a status
of 0 (command.com's own exit code, which has nothing to do with the
exit code of the command being run).  "It should work" on cmd.exe
systems.  Can't say anything definitive about use-my-own-shell
systems.

IOW, telling the truth would complicate the docs, and the result
wouldn't be portable across Windows boxes anyway.  So I'd rather leave
commands.py in peace, short, simple, obvious, but limited to Unix. 
It's not a suitable basis for a *good* solution to x-platform
command-line work (Tcl's "exec" subsystem is an example of a good
solution, but it's a lot of work).