Fix errors in syncing logic and update to use subprocess.check_call instead os.system

[wlach]

No description provided.

[jklukas]

This is probably also a problem that needs to be fixed. See https://github.com/mozilla/probe-scraper/pull/327/files#r701131309

[wlach]

Hmm, am pretty sure this is fine:

wlach@antwerp glean-dictionary % python3
Python 3.8.2 (default, Jun  8 2021, 11:59:35) 
[Clang 12.0.5 (clang-1205.0.22.11)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import os
>>> os.system("echo " + ("foo"))
foo
0

[badboy]

Mayb to just circumvent the whole "manually adding spaces" problem, stuff all arguments into an array, then " ".join() that together?
(Doesn't os.system alternatively take an array to do this for you?)

[jklukas]

The subprocess module provides more comprehensive facilities, including taking in a list of args instead of a full string. I think we should transition this code to do that.

[jklukas]

Hmm, am pretty sure this is fine

That example hits a python gotcha. ("foo") with a single entry and no trailing comma is not interpreted as a tuple. The example fails if you use ("foo",):

>>> os.system("echo " + ("foo",))
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: can only concatenate str (not "tuple") to str

[wlach]

The subprocess module provides more comprehensive facilities, including taking in a list of args instead of a full string. I think we should transition this code to do that.

Yeah, I was just thinking that. I'll update this PR to use check_call