Several questions about container.logs / certain container hangs

Hi,

I have several questions about container.logs. I'm using Python 3 with docker-py 2.5.1.

• What's the difference between stream and follow? It looks like if I specify stream, it will wait for more logs to come, which is essentially follow. On the other hand, if I specify follow, then it has to be stream (how else will I get results?)
• What's the return type. In the docs it says that string is returned if not streaming. However, I'm getting bytes. I am getting strings (in the generator) when streaming at some time - I haven't been able to identify when it returns string vs. bytes, but I seem to be getting strings in a ThreadPoolExecutor environment, and bytes if it's in its dedicated process.

Also, I can't get streaming logs for certain containers, consistently, at least if I start the stream as soon as the container is started. There's no error, but it simply hangs forever. (It take the container say 5 minutes to produce the first line) But there is log, and I can get it after it's produced. Unfortunately I'm not able to reproduce with trivial examples.

Any help is much appreciated. Thanks!

Start with the container.logs entry point and the Python 3/docker-py 2.5.1 behavior described here. Compare stream and follow semantics, record whether non-streaming and streaming results are bytes or strings, and investigate the reported hang when streaming starts immediately after container startup. Done means the behavior is reproducible or explained, with the expected return types and option semantics made clear.