Strange return value from os.system(...) call

[David Scott Williams]

I have a shell script that exits out with either a 0 or 1...and am
experiencing a strange phenomenon...

somevalue=os.system("/path/to/script")
print "somevalue:"+str(somevalue)

If my script exits with 0, somevalue is 0
....if it exits with 1, somevalue is 256

 

[Michael Fuhr]

somevalue=os.system("/path/to/script")
print "somevalue:"+str(somevalue)

If my script exits with 0, somevalue is 0
...if it exits with 1, somevalue is 256

See the documentation for os.system(), os.wait(), and os.WEXITSTATUS():

http://www.python.org/doc/2.3.4/lib/os-process.html