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
– Silas Ray, Commented Aug 7, 2012 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
– Inbar Rose, Commented Aug 7, 2012 at 12:47

Charles Duffy · Accepted Answer · 2018-07-17 16:22:11Z

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)

thank you thank you! using a list solves all sorts of weird quoting/escaping issues +1

Webtest · Accepted Answer · 2024-04-05 22:32:12Z

This helped me very much trying to get very complex file specs, from a catalog of music in an irregular folder structure, into ffplay. I never did get it to work with a string variable in os.system() call nor in subprocess.call(). It only worked putting the string directly into the call.

subprocess.call( "ffplay", "-nodisp", "-autoexit", 'complex path string' )

I finally found the list method suggested by jfs (THANK YOU!). It enables using a variable for the filespec. The key was to put the variable into a list without any quotes embedded in the string. The list furnishes the required quotes and works GREAT! Here is the "list" solution:

songspec = "a complex /media/mint filespec without embedded quotes!" playsong = ["ffplay", "-nodisp", "-autoexit", songspec] subprocess.call(playsong)

This works PERFECTLY and I can automatically step through my list of songs with no problem. It took me about 3 hours to get this one operation functioning.

Please don't add "thank you" as an answer. Instead, vote up the answers that you find helpful. - From Review

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