process.py -- a Python module for process control

Download

process.py 0.7.1 source package

Home	http://trentm.com/projects/process/
License	MIT (more details at OSI)
Platforms	Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris, other Un*x
Current Version	0.7.1 What's new?
Dev Status	fairly mature, heavily used in a commercial product, not perfect though
Requirements	Python >= 2.3, which.py >= 1.0

What's new?

I have moved hosting of process.py from my old Starship pages to this site. The current version includes a number of fixes that we at ActiveState had made to Komodo's private copy of process.py.

WARNING: If you upgrade my which.py to v1.1.0 and use this process.py, you must use v0.7.1 or greater. This is because of a slight _version_/__version__ semantic change in which.py.

Why process.py?

process.py is a (rather large) Python module to make process control easier and more consistent on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X (and other Un*ces). The current mechanisms (os.popen*, os.system, os.exec*, os.spawn*) all have limitations.

A quick list of some reasons to use process.py:

You don't have to handle quoting the arguments of your command line. You can pass in a command string or an argv.
You can specify the current working directory (cwd) and the environment (env) for the started process.
On Windows you can spawn a process without a console window opening.
You can wait for process termination or kill the running process without having to worry about weird platform issues. (Killing on Windows should first give the process a chance to shutdown cleanly. Killing on Linux will not work from a different thread than the process that created it.)
The ProcessProxy class allows you to interact in a pseudo-event-based way with the spawned process. I.e., you can pass in file-like object for any of stdin, stdout, or stderr to handle interaction with the process.

Note that since I developed process.py, Python has grown (in version 2.4) the new subprocess module. I haven't yet had the chance to do a feature comparison of process.py and subprocess but the latter is definitely more capable than the older Python process control mechanisms. If you are considering using process.py you should definitely checkout subprocess as well.

Install Notes

Download the latest process.py source package, unzip it, and run setup.py install:

unzip process-0.7.1.zip
cd process-0.7.1
python setup.py install

If your install fails then please visit the Troubleshooting FAQ.

Getting Started

Currently the best intro to process.py is its module documentation. Either install process.py and run:

pydoc process

or just take a look at process.py in your editor or here.

Change Log

v0.7.1

Fix a mistake in porting Komodo change 73508 (changing _joinArgv()) to process.py in revision 326 that made process.py useless.

v0.7.0

Change version attributes and semantics. Before: had a version tuple. After: version is a string, version_info is a tuple.

TODO: recover changelog from before this version

trentm.com » projects » process.py