Fixes #2847

[SuperSandro2000]

No description provided.

[SuperSandro2000]

Reverted the Unix changes.

[sampsyo]

Thanks! I like the idea to avoid exec altogether on Windows; this should probably make things more predictable.

If we're not using exec, however, maybe the right thing to use here would be subprocess, which is less error prone than system. If we do that, it seems like we could use shlex_split on both platforms.

The AppVeyor output points toward the tests that need some additional examination:
https://ci.appveyor.com/project/beetbox/beets/build/2415/job/w43io2yinu90h50b#L122

[SuperSandro2000]

Sounds reasonable. Including shlex_split should fix the test with raise error and the other one expects exec to be called so I think it needs to be updated.

[SuperSandro2000]

Implemented subprocess. We need to call cmd.exe /c "start targets" as python is not aware of cmd-based command. I would be quite happy if you could help me with the tests. I know I need to change something here https://github.com/beetbox/beets/blob/master/test/test_config_command.py#L113 but I am not sure how to do it right.

Edit: I hope I changed the tests correctly.

[SuperSandro2000]

I am not sure about the tests. Works but I think the behavior is different with os.exelp and subprocess.call.

[sampsyo]

Thank you for working out the details here! I left one comment inline about dealing with shell argument weirdness.

[sampsyo]

Here's the last thing we need a way around: using interpolation will cause unpredictable problems here when the filename contains special characters (including spaces). Do you know whether it's possible to get the same effect while using proper argument lists?

For example, what I would want to work would be:

subprocess.call('start', filename)

but, as you realized, that won't work because start is a cmd shell built-in. See this SO answer, for example.

Is there any clever way we can pass the filename argument as a proper shell argument without shell interpolation? As a last resort, we may need to escape the filename ourselves. 😕

[SuperSandro2000]

subprocess.call(["cmd", "/c", "start", file])
I got this working

[jtpavlock]

@SuperSandro2000 do you still intend to continue this?

[SuperSandro2000]

@jtpavlock It was dead for 2.5 years not from my side.

[jtpavlock]

Well if you're still interested in getting it merged, it would need at the very least a relevant change log entry/docs and maybe we can get @sampsyo to give it another look over.

[SuperSandro2000]

@jtpavlock Replaced by #3665