os.system commands in CGI on IIS?

[James T. Dennis]

Daniel Dittmar <daniel at dittmar.net> wrote:

>> if I execute
>> os.system("copy c:\a.txt c:\b.txt")
>> It does not happen when the cgi page is called from a browser.
>> However if the script is run from the command line, it works fine.

 Try os.system( r"copy c:\a.txt c:\b.txt" )

 ... to make that into a *raw* string (one in which a \ is just
 a \ and not a special character.

> In this specific case, you could use shutil.copy. In general, console 
> applications (like cmd.exe) will not work inside a service or a GUI only 
> program. You might try using the popen2 module, which possibly sets up 
> stdin and stdout just right such that Windows doesn't need the console 
> window. Setting the property 'may interact with desktop' for the IIS 
> service might work as well, but you'll get annoying windows flashing 
> across the screen.

> Daniel

 For this particular example, shutil.copy() is better.  For the
 general case of passing literal strings, esp. MS-DOS compatible 
 filespecs with \'s, use raw strings when you can, mind your 
 escape sequences when you can't.