Python.exe starts up a windows console which gives you things stdin, stderr, and stdout from the C runtime.
Be warned that you do not have those things with the consoleless(?) pythonw.exe, stuff which MS intends for gui applications. It reminds me of select() on windows only working halfway (just w/sockets) because of the history of how all this got added to windows. A lot of half-way stuff. john -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
