http://hg.python.org/cpython/file/29d9638bf449/Lib/subprocess.py#l1144
This was introduced in revision 6b627e121573  and is currently not documented.
I'm not sure whether this is a documentation issue or "endtime" should have been "_endtime" instead.

Sorry: revision a161081e8f7c.

Indeed, there's no issue number or NEWS entry.  It's not clear from the limited context why this parameter was added.  It doesn't appear to be consistent with the rest of the stdlib: the application can compute timeout from its desired endtime, which is how all of the other stdlib 'wait' APIs work.

Also, the implementation as it stands is in any case flawed, since specifying both timeout and endtime is allowed by the code, and results in endtime overriding timeout silently, and in the posix version the resulting timeout error message will have the ignored timeout in it.

Unfortunately this has been in here for a while (March 2011) so people may be using it.

Based on the docs in the original commit (c4a0fa6e687c), I suspect endtime on wait was supposed to be an internal parameter....except that it is never used internally.  The endtime is converted back to a timeout in order to call wait.  Ideally we'd just drop it...but it may be in use in wild.

I'd be for just getting rid of it for 3.4 now that we still can.
Being that this parameter is 1) not documented and 2) it's not even clear what it does I think it's unlikely that there's people using it.

This isn't a release blocker.  And it's not really viable to remove it.

Since it's been in several releases, I suspect our only option is to throw a deprecation warning.  And, since deprecations aren't turned on by default, maybe the best thing would be to also document it (!) as being deprecated (!!).

Even though rc1 is already tagged and in the process of being released, I will accept a patch with the above suggested change for Python 3.4.  If you want to do something else talk to me first.

> Since it's been in several releases

AFAICT only 3.3. 
Reid, are you willing to provide a patch?

I don't think we should document it as deprecated except in What's New.  But a code deprecation in 3.4 would be a good idea.

My suggestion for documenting it was to document the fact that it's unsupported, unrecommended, deprecated, has poor semantics, etc.  If a user discovers it, and finds it's not documented, they'll probably think they can get away with using it.  If we explicitly document it as "don't use" I think that's better.

New changeset 73793590d97b by Gregory P. Smith in branch 'default':
Deprecate Popen.wait()'s undocumented endtime parameter. issue20572.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/73793590d97b

documented with a deprecation.  that's the best we can do for now.  it can be considered for removal in the 3.5 or 3.6 timeframe.  i doubt many people used it.

Well, a deprecation warning in the code would be nice in case anybody did use it.  Personally I don't see any problem with putting that in 3.4.1 if we don't get to it for 3.4.0.

I'm reopening this as a 3.5 issue to do the actual removal.

I suggest that that documentation counts for starting the deprecation cycle, however I would still also accept a patch adding a deprecation warning if the parameter is used.

Do we still want to remove the endtime parameter?

1. So, is it ok to remove the endtime parameter now?
2. Can the attached downloadfile.htm be removed? It's a spam.

Thanks :)

I think other people wanted to add an automated deprecation warning in the code first, before removing it.

Thanks, Martin :)
Attached is the patch where deprecation warning is emitted if endtime argument is passed.
Let me know if this works.

Thanks :)

Thanks Mariatta. Some people like to use the warn(stacklevel=2) parameter, then the warning message is potentially more useful.

Also, I think it would be good to write a brief test case for the warning. There are probably lots of examples in the test suite, e.g. search for DeprecationWarning in revision 0dd263949e41.

Have you checked if there is existing code using the endtime=... parameter? It you run the test suite with -Werror enabled, that would be a good indicator.

Maybe it is okay to remove the parameter completely in 3.7.

Thanks Martin :)

Alright, in v2 patch, I added stacklevel=2 parameter and test case for it.
Did not find any usage of the endtime parameter in cpython.

I'm also thinking that it can be removed in 3.7, considering it's been documented as deprecated since 3.4. But maybe I'm not a good judge for this?

lol forgot to upload the patch. Here it is :)

New changeset 0e8aa537c565 by Gregory P. Smith in branch '3.6':
Issue #20572: The subprocess.Popen.wait method's undocumented endtime
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/0e8aa537c565

New changeset f02422c6110a by Gregory P. Smith in branch 'default':
Issue #20572: Remove the subprocess.Popen.wait endtime parameter.
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/f02422c6110a

thanks for the patch.  I reworked it slightly including the test.  warning in 3.6, gone in 3.7.  i still need to update the 3.7 docs to remove it.

New changeset 54b2f377653d by Gregory P. Smith in branch 'default':
issue 20572: remove the deprecation notice for the deleted endtime parameter.
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/54b2f377653d

Works for me. Thanks :)

Maybe it's ok to close this ticket now?