How to pass a multiline arg to exec('some.exe arg')?

[n00m]

actually, it's this doesn't work (again, in VBS the "same"
construction works properly):

f = os.popen('osql -E -S(local) -dpubs -w800 -Q"' + query + '"', 'r')

res=f.readlines()

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here "query" is a multiline string like:

select getdate()

    select 555*666

select getdate()