python -c commands on windows.

[random832 at fastmail.us]

On Mon, Oct 21, 2013, at 16:47, Terry Reedy wrote:
> Manual says "-c <command>
>      Execute the Python code in command. command can be one or more 
> statements separated by newlines, with significant leading whitespace as 
> in normal module code."
> 
> In Windows Command Prompt I get:
> C:\Programs\Python33>python -c "a=1\nprint(a)"
>    File "<string>", line 1
>      a=1\nprint(a)
>                  ^
> SyntaxError: unexpected character after line continuation character
> (Same if I remove quotes.)
> 
> How do I get this to work?

Well, ignoring the "why would you want to" factor... this actually _is_
possible.

C:\>python -c a=1^
More?
More? print(a)
1

You can put quotes around any part of the command you need spaces in,
but you _cannot_ have the ^ in quotes. So, with quotes, it would be as
follows:

C:\>python -c "a='1 2'"^
More?
More? print(a)
1 2

This is a very obscure feature of the command processor, and I don't
know if it works inside a batch file.