Python subprocess call with arguments having multiple quotations

Question

I use the following command in bash to execute a Python script.

python myfile.py -c "'USA'" -g "'CA'" -0 "'2011-10-13'" -1 "'2011-10-27'"

I'm writing a Python script to wrap around this one. I'm currently having to use os.system (I know, it's crappy) since I can't figure out how to get the quotes to work with subprocess.Popen. The inner single quotes must be maintained in the string variables that are passed in.

Can someone please help me determine how to format the first variable passed to subprocess.Popen.

fabmilo · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-20 20:14:06Z

8

You don't need to escape the values. To the process everything is passed as a string.

You can use the shlex module to figure out what is the best way to pass variables:

import shlex
shlex.split('python myfile.py -c "USA" -g "CA" -0 "2011-10-13" -1 "2011-10-27"') 
['python',
 'myfile.py',
 '-c',
 'USA',
 '-g',
 'CA',
 '-0',
 '2011-10-13',
 '-1',
 '2011-10-27']

answered Dec 20, 2011 at 20:14

fabmilo

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2 Comments

Raymond Hettinger Over a year ago

This is the preferred OneWayToDoIt(tm).

Chris Matta Over a year ago

Note that this doesn't work for Windows environments as shlex is meant for Unix shells.

sth · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-20 20:23:40Z

4

You should be able to launch your script with subprocess.Popen even with quoted parameters :

subprocess.Popen([
   "/usr/bin/python", 
   "myfile.py",
   "-c",
   "'USA'",
   "-g",
   "'CA'",
   "-0",
   "'2011-10-13'",
   "-1",
   "'2011-10-27'",
])

edited Dec 20, 2011 at 20:23

sth

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answered Dec 20, 2011 at 20:06

Cédric Julien

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Comments

jcollado · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-20 20:07:18Z

0

Have you tried this?

import subprocess
subprocess.Popen(['python', 'myfile.py', '-c', "'USA'", '-g', "'CA'", '-0', "'2011-10-13'", -1, "'2011-10-27'"]).communicate()

You could use this in myfile.py to check that what you get from bash is the same as what you get from subprocess.Popen (in my case it matches):

import sys
print sys.argv

answered Dec 20, 2011 at 20:07

jcollado

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