docker / docker/docker-py

`exec_run` with `demux=True`: output is `None` instead of empty `bytes`

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Python
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Description

When calling exec_run with demux=True, the documentation states that a pair of bytes is returned.

However, if no standard output (or no standard error) is produced, then the corresponding tuple entry is None instead of an empty bytes (b'').

Minimum working example:

import docker
client = docker.from_env()
container = client.containers.run("alpine:latest", detach=True, tty=True)
container.exec_run(("sh", "-c", "echo out >&1"), demux=True)  # ExecResult(exit_code=0, output=(b'out\n', None))
container.exec_run(("sh", "-c", "echo err >&2"), demux=True)  # ExecResult(exit_code=0, output=(None, b'err\n'))

The expected behaviour is that both tuple entries are always bytes. Alternatively, the possibility of returning None should be documented clearly!

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  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the exec_run entry point and run the minimum working example against alpine:latest with demux=True to reproduce both output cases. Done means the behavior matches the expected pair of bytes, or the documentation clearly explains when a tuple entry is None; add coverage for the no-stdout and no-stderr cases if the existing test suite has a relevant location.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
docker, python
Domain
api, backend
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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