"Unquote"/parse bash argument string in python

Question

I have a python script that takes its input from the command line arguments. For example:

./myscript.py first_item second\ item "third item"

I can output separate items and escape spaces and special characters using pipes.quote.

print " ".join(map(pipes.quote, outputItems))

Is there any existing "unquote" interface that will parse a bash argument string, keeping escaped spaces and quoted strings intact?

Something that would allow the same python script to handle this:

echo 'first_item second\ item "third item"' | ./myscript.py

Answer 1

You want shlex.split():

s = 'first_item second\ item "third item"'

import shlex

shlex.split(s)
Out[3]: ['first_item', 'second item', 'third item']