[SOLVED] "The system cannot find the file specified" when invoking subprocess.Popen in python

"The system cannot find the file specified" when invoking subprocess.Popen in python

I'm trying to use svnmerge.py to merge some files. Under the hood it uses python, and when I use it I get an error - "The system cannot find the file specified". Colleagues at work are running the same version of svnmerge.py, and of python (2.5.2, specifically r252:60911) without an issue.

I found this link, which describes my problem. Trying what was outlined there, I confirmed Python could find SVN (it's in my path):

P:\>python
Python 2.5.2 (r252:60911, Feb 21 2008, 13:11:45) [MSC v.1310 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import os
>>> i,k = os.popen4("svn --version")
>>> i.close()
>>> k.readline()
'svn, version 1.4.2 (r22196)\n'

Looking at the svnmerge.py code, though, I noticed for python versions 2.4 and higher it was following a different execution path. Rather than invoking os.popen4() it uses subprocess.Popen(). Trying that reproduces the error:

C:\>python
Python 2.5.2 (r252:60911, Feb 21 2008, 13:11:45) [MSC v.1310 32 bit (Intel)] on win32 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import subprocess
>>> p = subprocess.Popen("svn --version", stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
>>> close_fds=False, stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "", line 1, in 
  File "C:\Python25\lib\subprocess.py", line 594, in __init__
    errread, errwrite)
  File "C:\Python25\lib\subprocess.py", line 816, in _execute_child
    startupinfo)
WindowsError: [Error 2] The system cannot find the file specified
>>>

For now, I've commented out the 2.4-and-higher specific code, but I'd like to find a proper solution.

If it's not obvious, I'm a complete python newbie, but Google hasn't helped.

Solution

It's a bug, see the documentation of subprocess.Popen. There either needs to be a "shell=True" option, or the first argument needs to be a sequence ['svn', '--version']. As it is now, Popen is looking for an executable named, literally, "svn --version" which it doesn't find.

I don't know why it would work for your colleagues though, if they are running the same OS and version of Python... FWIW it gives me the same error message on a mac, and either of the two ways I gave fixes it.