Controlling processes (popen2)

[Daniel Klein]

First some background info: I've been learning Python seriously now for
about a month and the first real task I am faced with is to write a Python
script which controls a BASIC process. Additionally I have to do the same
thing in Java. (The BASIC process is used to interface with a third party
database [open files, read, write, etc], but this is just fyi.) The script
must be cross-platform but I am testing this on Win2000 as I don't have a
Linux box available at the moment.

The problem is that in Python I have to terminate all output to the BASIC
process with a \r (rather than \n). In Java, I can use either \n or \r.

To illustrate this, here is a simple BASIC program which compiles to a C
executable called say, TESTIT (note that a ':' is used for concatenation
here):

INPUT LINE1
INPUT LINE2
PRINT "LINE1=" : LINE1
PRINT "LINE2=" : LINE2

Here is the companion Python script which controls this process:

import popen2
instream, outstream = popen2.popen2("TESTIT.exe")
outstream.write("dead\n")
outstream.write("parrot\n")
outstream.flush()
print instream.readline(),
print instream.readline(),
outstream.close()
instream.close()

...and here is a similar one in Java:

import java.io.*;
public class Test1 {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    try {
      Process process = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("TESTIT.exe");
      OutputStreamWriter outstream = new
OutputStreamWriter(process.getOutputStream());
      BufferedReader instream = new BufferedReader(new
InputStreamReader(process.getInputStream()));
      outstream.write("dead\n");
      outstream.write("parrot\n");
      outstream.flush();
      System.out.println(instream.readLine());
      System.out.println(instream.readLine());
      instream.close();
      outstream.close();
    }
    catch (Exception e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
    }
  }
}

The output from the Python script using the \n is:

LINE1=dead
LINE2=

Notice that it printed the literal text but not the data sent to the input
stream for the second line.

And the corresponding output from Java (which also uses \n):

LINE1=dead
LINE2=parrot

If I change the Python script to use \r, it matches the Java output. Now I
know you're going to say to use \r (and that is what I'm doing), but the
question is, why does Python behave differently?

Any ideas?

Daniel Klein
Portland, OR USA