Escaping strings to be used in shell commands?

[Michael Hudson]

Gabriel Ambuehl <gabriel_ambuehl-py at buz.ch> writes:

> I wonder what is the easiest way to escape user submitted strings so
> I can safely use them in os.system() calls. Limiting the allowed
> chars isn't feasible since I want them to use as safe passwords as
> possible and those generally DO consist of special chars. Any good
> ideas how I could solve this?

Don't use os.system - use os.execv or os.spawnv instead.  That way you
don't have to do battle with the Bourne shell's, erm, interesting
quoting rules.

Cheers,
M,

-- 
  The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste.
              -- Steve Jobs, (From _Triumph of the Nerds_ PBS special)
                         and quoted by Aahz Maruch on comp.lang.python