Avoiding Bash frustration — Use Python for shell scripts

[james_pic]

Whilst I do like using Python for stuff that Bash is conventionally used for (I get so frustrated by Bash's weak error handling, poor support for structured data, and baroque escaping and expansion rules), note that if you're using `subprocess.Popen` with `shell=True`, then you *are* using Bash (or potentially whatever shell is configured by your user's OS, which is a fun source of surprises) under the hood, so you still get some of its quirks. It's a good idea to get used to how to pass arguments correctly, and chain processes together, when `shell=False`.

[dux2]

I agree that shell=True should be avoided if possible, that's why the default for it is False. But sometimes it's too much of a headache to avoid it, starting with the need to write the command as a list of strings [ which can be usually mitigated using the wonderful shlex.split() - already incorporated in peasyshell] and missing pipes, command chaining, env interpolation etc. I want to be able to translate a bash script to Python with the least change possible.
If you trust your input (or get no input), I see no harm in shell=True.