Let's start with "Why open3?" Open3 provides me an easily method for splitting IO communication. Most of the stuff I deal with is over SecureShell and frankly I like the way the output is available via the appropriate handles. Moreover, the need to time out a process is highly needed no matter if the command is local or remote. Take the example of the 'df' command and HP-UX, what happens if one run the command and it hits a hung NFS file system?

None of this was mentioned in either of your two threads. You offered this as an RFC:tutorial, not a chopped down version of a real application with an onerous set of very specific (and till now, unmentioned) technical requirements.

I hope you realise that I cannot read your mind.

I also think you may be missing the importance of ensuring that bad process do not remain in the process table.

In my sample, I only attempted to meet the functionality of your latest code. Your latest code dropped the timeout and kill the process part, so I didn't implement it.

But adding that functionality back to my sample code would require maybe 5 more lines. (For *nix, maybe 10 for Win32.)