On Sunday, February 24, 2013 9:35:17 PM UTC-8, Terry Reedy wrote: > On 2/24/2013 4:35 AM, Chris Rebert wrote: > > > > > Sounds like this might be your problem: > > > http://bugs.python.org/issue8936 > > > > I just closed that issue an invalid. Here is most of what I wrote. > > ''' > > After reading the doc and the code, I am convinced that current behavior > > is close to the implied wanted behavior, and that it is not a bug. > > > > The doc says > > webbrowser.open(url, new=0, autoraise=True) > > Display url using the default browser. > > > > What does 'default browswer' mean? Near the top, the doc says "If the > > environment variable BROWSER exists, it is interpreted to override the > > platform default list of browsers,". So the 'default browser' is > > actually the 'default browser list'. What open() does is to try each in > > turn and stop when one says it succeeded. So the doc should say 'using > > the first default browser that claims to succeed.' > > > > What does 'default browser list' mean? It depends on the platform *and* > > the software loaded on the particular machine when webbrowser is first > > imported in a particular instance of the interpreter. The 'platform' > > part is in the quote above, the rest is not. I will open a separate doc > > issue. > > > > On Windows, the list starts with 'default Windows browser', which calls > > os.startfile(), which, I believe, does call the user default browser. > > Next is Internet Explorer -- if available at that time on the particular > > machine! If the user-default browser rejects the url, then IE is tried. > > > > On my win7 machine today, I have Firefox the default and IE available. > > Firefox rejects 127.0.0.1:8080 with an 'Unable to connect' error box. IE > > 'accepts' it in the sense that it displays an information starting 'The > > webpage cannot be displayed'. > > ''' > > > > For *this* issue, I strongly suspect that Chrome is rejecting the > > invalid URL and telling Python so. So IE is tried next (but not first). > > > > > The fix would seem to be ensuring that the URL you pass includes the > > > scheme (in your case, "file:"). > > > > so that Chrome does not return an error code, in which case IE should > > *not* be tried as a backup. > > > > -- > > Terry Jan Reedy
Terry, after what I've learned today I'm tempted to agree that it's not necessarily a bug, and that maybe all that's needed is a bit more clarity in the documentation. On the other hand, it *is* a bit frustrating that Linux recognizes an html-style relative path, while Windows insists on the entire absolute path. Maybe we can call it a Windows bug, but a workaround would be nice to have. However, combined with os.path.abspath(), it's not a huge issue -- once we understand the approach. I certainly appreciate your taking the time to make an analysis of it, and someday I hope to have the time and skills to help out in some small way. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
