Python in a Nutshell

Name

spawnv, spawnve

Synopsis

spawnv(mode,path,args)
spawnve(mode,path,args,env)

These functions run the program indicated by path in a new process P, with the arguments passed as sequence args. spawnve uses mapping env as P’s environment (both keys and values must be strings), while spawnv uses os.environ for this purpose. On Unix-like platforms only, there are other variations of os.spawn, corresponding to variations of os.exec, but spawnv and spawnve are the only two that exist on Windows.

mode must be one of two attributes supplied by the os module: os.P_WAIT indicates that the calling process waits until the new process terminates, while os.P_NOWAIT indicates that the calling process continues executing simultaneously with the new process. When mode is os.P_WAIT, the function returns the termination code c of P: 0 indicates successful termination, c less than 0 indicates P was killed by a signal, and c greater than 0 indicates normal but unsuccessful termination. When mode is os.P_NOWAIT, the function returns P’s process ID (on Windows, P’s process handle). There is no cross-platform way to use P’s ID or handle; platform-specific ways (not covered further in this book) include function os.waitpid on Unix-like platforms and the win32all extensions (starship.python.net/crew/mhammond) on Windows.

For example, your interactive program can give the user a chance to edit a text file that your program is about to read and use. You must have previously determined the full path to the ...