Re: [PATCH] Add file-dwim.

[Artur Malabarba <bruce.connor.am@gmail.com>]

2015-10-18 23:39 GMT+01:00 Random832 <random832@fastmail.com>:
> Artur Malabarba <bruce.connor.am@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Actually, people shouldn't use shell-command unless they specifically
>> need a shell.
>> If you want an external program, use start-process; if you want it
>> synchronous, use call-process.
>
> Can call-process return the stdout of the process in a string, as
> shell-command-to-string does?

Yep (like Eli latter suggests):

(with-temp-buffer
  (call-process "ls" nil t)
  (buffer-string))

Sure, it's ok to use shell-process-to-string if you're just hacking
something together for yourself. But in proper distributed code it's
best to start processes directly, which is safer and more robust than
spawning useless shells.