andrew mcnabb xeuksijmcnabbsorg tue apr 22 2008 033330pm 0300 facundo batista wrote 2008422 andrew mcnabb thats best thing subprocess whenever ive used apis accept single string instead list arguments ive quickly descended quoting hell dont understand could please provide one example two heres really simple example bash c filetmpa b c cat file thats pretty simple list arguments single string get bash c filetmpa b c cat file get much worse especially need use backslashes heres another argument might find even convincing got filename user pass filename argument command argument string like cat filename program would break filename contained spaces however arguments cat filename everything exactly expect andrew mcnabb httpwwwmcnabbsorgandrew pgp fingerprint 8a17 b57c 6879 1863 de55 8012 ab4d 6098 8826 6868 thu 07 aug 2008 162740 0600 python3000 ospopen versus subprocesspopen