CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonshellsubprocess
entropy.maximum
entropy.maximum

Reputation: 477

How do I pass parameters with whitespaces to bash through subprocess?

I have a Python script that calls another shell script -

arg1 = "-a"
arg2 = "-b"
arg3 = "Some String"

argList = ["script.sh", arg1, arg2, arg3]
subprocess.call(argList)

When I run the script, arg3 gets split to "Some" and "String" and is passed as two separate arguments.

How can I overcome this to pass "Some String" as a single argument?

EDIT: SOLVED

I was calling another function internally in the called script by passing the arguments as $1, $2, $3, .. etc. When I should've quoted the arguments that might have whitespaces like $1, $2, "$3" .. etc. Sorry for the confusion.

Upvotes: 5

Views: 529

Answers (4)

George Vasiliou
George Vasiliou

Reputation: 6335

This is more an extended comment than an answer.

Your code works fine in my Debian 9.3

$ cat sc.sh
#!/bin/sh
# Above line is mandatory - otherwise python returns error of unkonwn format
echo "arg1=$1"
echo "arg2=$2"
echo "arg3=$3"
echo "arg4=$4"

$ chmod +x sc.sh

$ pwd
/home/gv

$ cat test.py
import subprocess
arg1 = "-a"
arg2 = "-b"
arg3 = "some string"

arglist = ["/home/gv/sc.sh", arg1, arg2, arg3]
subprocess.call(arglist)

$ python test.py
arg1=-a
arg2=-b
arg3=some string
arg4=

PS : In my system python 2.17.14 is installed and bash 4.4.12

Upvotes: 0

anubhava
anubhava

Reputation: 784948

This should work:

import subprocess

arg1 = "-a"
arg2 = "-b"
arg3 = "Some String"

argList = ["sh", "script.sh", arg1, arg2, arg3]

subprocess.call(argList)

and inside script.sh

printf '%s\n' "$@"

Make sure "$@" is quoted to avoid word splitting inside your shell script.

This will output:

-a
-b
Some String

Upvotes: 1

Yoni Rabinovitch
Yoni Rabinovitch

Reputation: 5261

Try this:

import shlex, subprocess
args=shlex.split('script.sh -a -b "Some String"')
subprocess.Popen(args)

Upvotes: 0

elm
elm

Reputation: 20415

Escape the double quotes,

arg3 = "\"Some String\""

Upvotes: 0

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