Regression: click.launch() broken on Windows in version 8.1.8

[ivankravets]

click.launch("https://click.palletsprojects.com/en/stable/") results in [WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified on Windows due to an incorrect migration from os.system to subprocess.call. Refer to the official documentation:

Replacing `os.system()`

sts = os.system("mycmd" + " myarg")
# becomes
retcode = call("mycmd" + " myarg", shell=True)

Proposed fix ivankravets@fb59f90

Environment:

• Python version: 3.x
• Click version: 8.1.8

[davidism]

We do not want to use shell=True, so you'll need to find a different fix.

[ivankravets]

Sorry, but I’m not sure I understand you. The API has been working since the first version of Click (more than 10 years), and the documentation highlights the use of click.launch() in multiple places for opening web URLs. See: https://click.palletsprojects.com/en/stable/utils/#launching-applications

Could you revert that part of the code if there is no solution that avoids breaking an API that has worked for multiple years? The launch function is a high-level abstraction and should not expose the end developer to OS-related technical issues.

[davidism]

I'm not saying this isn't a bug, I'm saying we don't want to use shell=True. So the fix is not to revert it or use shell=True, but to research and fix it another way.

[johannkm]

I also ran in to this. Here's where this was introduced: #1477

I believe it would work to use the same error handling for windows as this diff adds for Linux: https://github.com/pallets/click/blob/stable/src/click/_termui_impl.py#L673-L679, with a fallback to webbrowser.open()