Handling directories with spaces Python subprocess.call()

Question

I'm trying to create a program that scans a text file and passes arguments to subprocess. Everything works fine until I get directories with spaces in the path.

My split method, which breaks down the arguments trips up over the spaces:

s = "svn move folder/hello\ world anotherfolder/hello\ world"

task = s.split(" ")
process = subprocess.check_call(task, shell = False)

Do, either I need function to parse the correct arguments, or I pass the whole string to the subprocess without breaking it down first.

I'm a little lost though.

Can you rely on a fixed number of space-delimited left tokens? — Silas Ray, Aug 07 '12 at 12:42
if you create the filename that is being read, why not have the values comma seperated? and then split on "," instead of all the hassle? — Inbar Rose, Aug 07 '12 at 12:47

score 23 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 17 '18 at 16:22

23

Use a list instead:

task = ["svn",  "move",  "folder/hello world", "anotherfolder/hello world"]
subprocess.check_call(task)

If your file contains whole commands, not just paths then you could try shlex.split():

task = shlex.split(s)
subprocess.check_call(task)

edited Jul 17 '18 at 16:22

Charles Duffy

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answered Aug 07 '12 at 12:44

jfs

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thank you thank you! using a list solves all sorts of weird quoting/escaping issues +1 – Brian Feb 11 '17 at 20:17

Handling directories with spaces Python subprocess.call()

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