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Author Steve Barnes
Recipients Steve Barnes, docs@python
Date 2017-03-16.16:58:21
SpamBayes Score -1.0
Marked as misclassified Yes
Message-id <1489683501.47.0.952186876903.issue29829@psf.upfronthosting.co.za>
In-reply-to
Content
When running under pythonw, or pyinstaller with the -w flag, modules that use subprocess calls such as popen, run, etc. will crash if the default `stdout=None, stderr=None` behaviour is used rather than PIPE. This is an obscure problem which is very hard to debug yet there is no warning in the documentation on this.

I would like to suggest adding a :warning:`stdout=None, stderr=None` must not be used in any of the calls in this module when running under pythonw due to the lack of sys.stdout & sys.stderr in that case. Please use `stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE` instead.

A patch against the default branch would be:
diff -r 4243df51fe43 Doc/library/subprocess.rst
--- a/Doc/library/subprocess.rst	Fri Feb 10 14:19:36 2017 +0100
+++ b/Doc/library/subprocess.rst	Thu Mar 16 16:56:24 2017 +0000
@@ -33,6 +33,13 @@
 function for all use cases it can handle. For more advanced use cases, the
 underlying :class:`Popen` interface can be used directly.
 
+.. warning:: Do not use default parameters on Windows with pythonw.
+    
+	As pythonw deletes `sys.stdout` & `sys.stderr` the use of the default 
+	parameters, `stdout=None, stderr=None,`, which defaults to being
+	`stdout=sys.stdout, stderr=sys.stderr,` may cause unexpected crashes
+	it is recommended to use `stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE,` instead.
+
 The :func:`run` function was added in Python 3.5; if you need to retain
 compatibility with older versions, see the :ref:`call-function-trio` section.
History
Date User Action Args
2017-03-16 16:58:21Steve Barnessetrecipients: + Steve Barnes, docs@python
2017-03-16 16:58:21Steve Barnessetmessageid: <1489683501.47.0.952186876903.issue29829@psf.upfronthosting.co.za>
2017-03-16 16:58:21Steve Barneslinkissue29829 messages
2017-03-16 16:58:21Steve Barnescreate