Cameron Simpson wrote: > On 10Sep2011 11:25, Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.pyt...@pearwood.info> > wrote: > | Cameron Simpson wrote: > | > My copy of the 2.7 docs says: > | > This is implemented by calling the Standard C function system(), and > | > has the same limitations. > | > and sure enough, "man 3 system" says: > | > | I don't consider having to look up documentation for a function in a > | completely different language (in this case, C) as "documented behaviour > | of os.system". > > You're kidding, surely?
No, I meant exactly what I said, but I suspect that you misunderstood what I said. I blame myself for not making myself more clear, sorry. > A wrapper function for a system supplied function > should recite everything about the wrapped function's behaviour (including > the system dependent stuff) in the wrapper doco? Heavens no, I certainly don't mean that. That would be silly. What I mean is that in the context of discussing Python library functions, "documented behaviour" refers to what the Python docs state, namely the function docstring and the docs at http://docs.python.org/ (or the 3.x version). Third-party documentation doesn't count: not blogs, not "some guy sent me an email", and not documentation for other tools either. So if you describe a feature of os.system as "documented", I'm going to understand that as *Python* documentation. Hence my question about where it is documented. If we're discussing external documentation, we should say so up front: not all Python users are using CPython, and not all Python coders know C and have access to the Linux man pages. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list