Make pathlib.PurePath.__str__ use shlex.quote

[cool-RR]

BPO	28811
Nosy	@pitrou, @cool-RR, @serhiy-storchaka

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

Show more details

GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2016-11-27.10:09:11.521>
created_at = <Date 2016-11-27.09:33:13.278>
labels = ['3.7', 'type-feature', 'library']
title = 'Make pathlib.PurePath.__str__ use shlex.quote'
updated_at = <Date 2016-11-28.10:25:38.479>
user = 'https://github.com/cool-RR'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2016-11-28.10:25:38.479>
actor = 'cool-RR'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2016-11-27.10:09:11.521>
closer = 'serhiy.storchaka'
components = ['Library (Lib)']
creation = <Date 2016-11-27.09:33:13.278>
creator = 'cool-RR'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 28811
keywords = []
message_count = 5.0
messages = ['281812', '281814', '281815', '281818', '281856']
nosy_count = 3.0
nosy_names = ['pitrou', 'cool-RR', 'serhiy.storchaka']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'rejected'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = 'enhancement'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue28811'
versions = ['Python 3.7']

[cool-RR]

I have a a PurePath object like so:

    path = PurePath('/home/my awesome user/file.txt')

I'm SSHing into a server and I want to remove the file. So I have to do this:

ssh_client.run(f'/bin/rm {shlex.quote(str(path))}')

Which is really long and ugly. (I might have been able to remove the str from there if bpo-28623 wasn't rejected.)

I wish I could do this:

    ssh_client.run(f'/bin/rm {path}')
    
But since my path has a space, that would only be possible if PurePath.__str__ were to use shlex.quote, and put quotes around my path (only if it includes a space).

What do you think about that?

[serhiy-storchaka]

This will break any code that pass str(path) to API that doesn't support pathlib.

In your case you can introduce a short alias:

    q = shlex.quote
    ssh_client.run(f'/bin/rm {q(str(path))}')

Or add more convenient helper:

    def q(path):
        return shlex.quote(str(path))

ssh_client.run(f'/bin/rm {q(path)}')

[cool-RR]

"This will break any code that pass str(path) to API that doesn't support pathlib."

I don't understand. Can you give a concrete example of code it would break?

[serhiy-storchaka]

open(str(path))

[cool-RR]

I understand now, you're completely right. This change would break the entire world :)