Okay I plan to commit a modified version where I moved the input() test methods that use pseudo terminals to a new PtyTests class. The test_input() method stays in the original class, because it shares a helper method with other tests. I am resisting dropping that decode() step, because it makes any error message from the forked child hard to read: AssertionError: 256 != 0 : b'quux\r\nTraceback (most recent call last):\r\n File "/media/disk/home/proj/python/cpython/Lib/test/test_builtin.py", line 1593, in test_input_no_stdout_fileno\r\n input("prompt")\r\nTypeError: bad argument type for built-in operation\r\n'