Maya ignores my doubles quotations

Question

I'm having troubles starting maya from a python script with a mel command. Or rather I have a problem getting the mel command to run, maya launches just fine.

This is what the maya documentation says about starting with a mel command:

-command [mel command]

Runs the specified command on startup. The command should be enclosed in double quotes to protect any special characters, including spaces.

Whatever I try Maya just ignores my doublequotes and gives me a syntax error. This is my code:

import os
dir = "D:\exampleProject\maya"
os.system('maya.exe -command \"setProject \"'+dir+'\"\"')

I figure this would be read as this in maya: setProject "D:\exampleProject\maya" (which is what I want) What I get is instead: setProject D:\exampleProject\maya which generates a syntax error in maya due to the lack of "" around the directory path.

Answer 1

Answer from comments

From the MEL documentation, it states that "Every statement in MEL must end with a semi-colon (;)."

MEL strings also require quotations to be escaped, therefore double escape the internal quotations.

'maya.exe -command \"setProject \\\"'+dir+'\\\";\"'

Answer 2

If all you need is to set the project you can use the startup flag "-proj"

maya.exe the/scene/iwant/to/open.ma -proj the/project/root

See the Documentation