Wildcard not working in subprocess call using shlex

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Chapters
00:00 Question
01:44 Accepted answer (Score 4)
02:27 Thank you

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Full question
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7156...

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Tags
#python #subprocess #shlex

#avk47

ACCEPTED ANSWER

Score 5

For replacing the * with what it means, you either need the shell or you need the glob module. So the easiest way would be shell=True (if the command is constant, I do not see any security holes).

Another approach would be

#!/usr/bin/python
import subprocess
import shlex
import glob

cmd = 'sudo rm -rf /work/TEST/*'
arg = shlex.split(cmd)
arg = arg[:-1] + glob.glob(arg[-1])

# This should work now
p = subprocess.Popen(arg)

or, if you would nevertheless append the path by yourself,

cmd = 'sudo rm -rf'
basearg = shlex.split(cmd)
arg = basearg + glob.glob(path+"/*")