[3.11] gh-114539: Clarify implicit launching of shells by subprocess (GH-117996)...

Co-authored-by: Steve Dower <steve.dower@python.org>

diff --git a/Doc/library/subprocess.rst b/Doc/library/subprocess.rst
index f2d0f83bb68b9454c2c544870edb346bf8e0af5b..c0ae9e5d7aae68867b5565d8ca9501ea648f4bd8 100644 (file)
--- a/Doc/library/subprocess.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/subprocess.rst
@@ -756,8 +756,8 @@ Exceptions defined in this module all inherit from :exc:`SubprocessError`.
 Security Considerations
 -----------------------
 
-Unlike some other popen functions, this implementation will never
-implicitly call a system shell.  This means that all characters,
+Unlike some other popen functions, this library will not
+implicitly choose to call a system shell.  This means that all characters,
 including shell metacharacters, can safely be passed to child processes.
 If the shell is invoked explicitly, via ``shell=True``, it is the application's
 responsibility to ensure that all whitespace and metacharacters are
@@ -766,6 +766,14 @@ quoted appropriately to avoid
 vulnerabilities. On :ref:`some platforms <shlex-quote-warning>`, it is possible
 to use :func:`shlex.quote` for this escaping.
 
+On Windows, batch files (:file:`*.bat` or :file:`*.cmd`) may be launched by the
+operating system in a system shell regardless of the arguments passed to this
+library. This could result in arguments being parsed according to shell rules,
+but without any escaping added by Python. If you are intentionally launching a
+batch file with arguments from untrusted sources, consider passing
+``shell=True`` to allow Python to escape special characters. See :gh:`114539`
+for additional discussion.
+
 
 Popen Objects
 -------------