Escaping strings to be used in shell commands?

[Brian Langenberger]

Timothy Grant <tjg at exceptionalminds.com> wrote:

<snip!>

: However, I am curious why there is more a problem with an app
: calling the useradd command, than there is with an admin
: issuing a useradd from the command line?

As long as python isn't running setuid root, or as long as
the script is suitable chmod'ed for admins only, os.system() 
isn't much of a big deal (aside from unintended consequences).
But whenever such scripts make it out for user-level use,
os.system() gives me the creeps because of all the nastiness
that can result.  I just don't trust it for much of anything :)