:mod:`!shlex` --- Simple lexical analysis
=========================================
.. module:: shlex
:synopsis: Simple lexical analysis for Unix shell-like languages.
.. moduleauthor:: Eric S. Raymond <[email protected]>
.. moduleauthor:: Gustavo Niemeyer <[email protected]>
.. sectionauthor:: Eric S. Raymond <[email protected]>
.. sectionauthor:: Gustavo Niemeyer <[email protected]>
**Source code:** :source:`Lib/shlex.py`
--------------
The :class:`~shlex.shlex` class makes it easy to write lexical analyzers for
simple syntaxes resembling that of the Unix shell. This will often be useful
for writing minilanguages, (for example, in run control files for Python
applications) or for parsing quoted strings.
The :mod:`shlex` module defines the following functions:
.. function:: split(s, comments=False, posix=True)
Split the string *s* using shell-like syntax. If *comments* is :const:`False`
(the default), the parsing of comments in the given string will be disabled
(setting the :attr:`~shlex.commenters` attribute of the
:class:`~shlex.shlex` instance to the empty string). This function operates
in POSIX mode by default, but uses non-POSIX mode if the *posix* argument is
false.
.. versionchanged:: 3.12
Passing ``None`` for *s* argument now raises an exception, rather than
reading :data:`sys.stdin`.
.. function:: join(split_command)
Concatenate the tokens of the list *split_command* and return a string.
This function is the inverse of :func:`split`.
>>> from shlex import join
>>> print(join(['echo', '-n', 'Multiple words']))
echo -n 'Multiple words'
The returned value is shell-escaped to protect against injection
vulnerabilities (see :func:`quote`).
.. versionadded:: 3.8
.. function:: quote(s)
Return a shell-escaped version of the string *s*. The returned value is a
string that can safely be used as one token in a shell command line, for
cases where you cannot use a list.
.. _shlex-quote-warning:
.. warning::
The ``shlex`` module is **only designed for Unix shells**.
The :func:`quote` function is not guaranteed to be correct on non-POSIX
compliant shells or shells from other operating systems such as Windows.
Executing commands quoted by this module on such shells can open up the
possibility of a command injection vulnerability.
Consider using functions that pass command arguments with lists such as
:func:`subprocess.run` with ``shell=False``.
This idiom would be unsafe:
>>> filename = 'somefile; rm -rf ~'
>>> command = 'ls -l {}'.format(filename)
>>> print(command) # executed by a shell: boom!
ls -l somefile; rm -rf ~
:func:`quote` lets you plug the security hole:
>>> from shlex import quote
>>> command = 'ls -l {}'.format(quote(filename))
>>> print(command)
ls -l 'somefile; rm -rf ~'
>>> remote_command = 'ssh home {}'.format(quote(command))
>>> print(remote_command)
ssh home 'ls -l '"'"'somefile; rm -rf ~'"'"''
The quoting is compatible with UNIX shells and with :func:`split`:
>>> from shlex import split
>>> remote_command = split(remote_command)
>>> remote_command
['ssh', 'home', "ls -l 'somefile; rm -rf ~'"]
>>> command = split(remote_command[-1])
>>> command
['ls', '-l', 'somefile; rm -rf ~']
.. versionadded:: 3.3
The :mod:`shlex` module defines the following class:
.. class:: shlex(instream=None, infile=None, posix=False, punctuation_chars=False)
A :class:`~shlex.shlex` instance or subclass instance is a lexical analyzer
object. The initialization argument, if present, specifies where to read
characters from. It must be a file-/stream-like object with
:meth:`~io.TextIOBase.read` and :meth:`~io.TextIOBase.readline` methods, or
a string. If no argument is given, input will be taken from ``sys.stdin``.
The second optional argument is a filename string, which sets the initial
value of the :attr:`~shlex.infile` attribute. If the *instream*
argument is omitted or equal to ``sys.stdin``, this second argument
defaults to "stdin". The *posix* argument defines the operational mode:
when *posix* is not true (default), the :class:`~shlex.shlex` instance will
operate in compatibility mode. When operating in POSIX mode,
:class:`~shlex.shlex` will try to be as close as possible to the POSIX shell
parsing rules. The *punctuation_chars* argument provides a way to make the
behaviour even closer to how real shells parse. This can take a number of
values: the default value, ``False``, preserves the behaviour seen under
Python 3.5 and earlier. If set to ``True``, then parsing of the characters
``();<>|&`` is changed: any run of these characters (considered punctuation
characters) is returned as a single token. If set to a non-empty string of
characters, those characters will be used as the punctuation characters. Any
characters in the :attr:`wordchars` attribute that appear in
*punctuation_chars* will be removed from :attr:`wordchars`. See
:ref:`improved-shell-compatibility` for more information. *punctuation_chars*
can be set only upon :class:`~shlex.shlex` instance creation and can't be
modified later.
.. versionchanged:: 3.6
The *punctuation_chars* parameter was added.
.. seealso::
Module :mod:`configparser`
Parser for configuration files similar to the Windows :file:`.ini` files.
.. _shlex-objects:
shlex Objects
-------------
A :class:`~shlex.shlex` instance has the following methods:
.. method:: shlex.get_token()
Return a token. If tokens have been stacked using :meth:`push_token`, pop a
token off the stack. Otherwise, read one from the input stream. If reading
encounters an immediate end-of-file, :attr:`eof` is returned (the empty
string (``''``) in non-POSIX mode, and ``None`` in POSIX mode).
.. method:: shlex.push_token(str)
Push the argument onto the token stack.
.. method:: shlex.read_token()
Read a raw token. Ignore the pushback stack, and do not interpret source
requests. (This is not ordinarily a useful entry point, and is documented here
only for the sake of completeness.)
.. method:: shlex.sourcehook(filename)
When :class:`~shlex.shlex` detects a source request (see :attr:`source`
below) this method is given the following token as argument, and expected
to return a tuple consisting of a filename and an open file-like object.
Normally, this method first strips any quotes off the argument. If the result
is an absolute pathname, or there was no previous source request in effect, or
the previous source was a stream (such as ``sys.stdin``), the result is left
alone. Otherwise, if the result is a relative pathname, the directory part of
the name of the file immediately before it on the source inclusion stack is
prepended (this behavior is like the way the C preprocessor handles ``#include
"file.h"``).
The result of the manipulations is treated as a filename, and returned as the
first component of the tuple, with :func:`open` called on it to yield the second
component. (Note: this is the reverse of the order of arguments in instance
initialization!)
This hook is exposed so that you can use it to implement directory search paths,
addition of file extensions, and other namespace hacks. There is no
corresponding 'close' hook, but a shlex instance will call the
:meth:`~io.IOBase.close` method of the sourced input stream when it returns
EOF.
For more explicit control of source stacking, use the :meth:`push_source` and
:meth:`pop_source` methods.
.. method:: shlex.push_source(newstream, newfile=None)
Push an input source stream onto the input stack. If the filename argument is
specified it will later be available for use in error messages. This is the
same method used internally by the :meth:`sourcehook` method.
.. method:: shlex.pop_source()
Pop the last-pushed input source from the input stack. This is the same method
used internally when the lexer reaches EOF on a stacked input stream.
.. method:: shlex.error_leader(infile=None, lineno=None)
This method generates an error message leader in the format of a Unix C compiler
error label; the format is ``'"%s", line %d: '``, where the ``%s`` is replaced
with the name of the current source file and the ``%d`` with the current input
line number (the optional arguments can be used to override these).
This convenience is provided to encourage :mod:`shlex` users to generate error
messages in the standard, parseable format understood by Emacs and other Unix
tools.
Instances of :class:`~shlex.shlex` subclasses have some public instance
variables which either control lexical analysis or can be used for debugging:
.. attribute:: shlex.commenters
The string of characters that are recognized as comment beginners. All
characters from the comment beginner to end of line are ignored. Includes just
``'#'`` by default.
.. attribute:: shlex.wordchars
The string of characters that will accumulate into multi-character tokens. By
default, includes all ASCII alphanumerics and underscore. In POSIX mode, the
accented characters in the Latin-1 set are also included. If
:attr:`punctuation_chars` is not empty, the characters ``~-./*?=``, which can
appear in filename specifications and command line parameters, will also be
included in this attribute, and any characters which appear in
``punctuation_chars`` will be removed from ``wordchars`` if they are present
there. If :attr:`whitespace_split` is set to ``True``, this will have no
effect.
.. attribute:: shlex.whitespace
Characters that will be considered whitespace and skipped. Whitespace bounds
tokens. By default, includes space, tab, linefeed and carriage-return.
.. attribute:: shlex.escape
Characters that will be considered as escape. This will be only used in POSIX
mode, and includes just ``'\'`` by default.
.. attribute:: shlex.quotes
Characters that will be considered string quotes. The token accumulates until
the same quote is encountered again (thus, different quote types protect each
other as in the shell.) By default, includes ASCII single and double quotes.
.. attribute:: shlex.escapedquotes
Characters in :attr:`quotes` that will interpret escape characters defined in
:attr:`escape`. This is only used in POSIX mode, and includes just ``'"'`` by
default.
.. attribute:: shlex.whitespace_split
If ``True``, tokens will only be split in whitespaces. This is useful, for
example, for parsing command lines with :class:`~shlex.shlex`, getting
tokens in a similar way to shell arguments. When used in combination with
:attr:`punctuation_chars`, tokens will be split on whitespace in addition to
those characters.
.. versionchanged:: 3.8
The :attr:`punctuation_chars` attribute was made compatible with the
:attr:`whitespace_split` attribute.
.. attribute:: shlex.infile
The name of the current input file, as initially set at class instantiation time
or stacked by later source requests. It may be useful to examine this when
constructing error messages.
.. attribute:: shlex.instream
The input stream from which this :class:`~shlex.shlex` instance is reading
characters.
.. attribute:: shlex.source
This attribute is ``None`` by default. If you assign a string to it, that
string will be recognized as a lexical-level inclusion request similar to the
``source`` keyword in various shells. That is, the immediately following token
will be opened as a filename and input will be taken from that stream until
EOF, at which point the :meth:`~io.IOBase.close` method of that stream will be
called and the input source will again become the original input stream. Source
requests may be stacked any number of levels deep.
.. attribute:: shlex.debug
If this attribute is numeric and ``1`` or more, a :class:`~shlex.shlex`
instance will print verbose progress output on its behavior. If you need
to use this, you can read the module source code to learn the details.
.. attribute:: shlex.lineno
Source line number (count of newlines seen so far plus one).
.. attribute:: shlex.token
The token buffer. It may be useful to examine this when catching exceptions.
.. attribute:: shlex.eof
Token used to determine end of file. This will be set to the empty string
(``''``), in non-POSIX mode, and to ``None`` in POSIX mode.
.. attribute:: shlex.punctuation_chars
A read-only property. Characters that will be considered punctuation. Runs of
punctuation characters will be returned as a single token. However, note that no
semantic validity checking will be performed: for example, '>>>' could be
returned as a token, even though it may not be recognised as such by shells.
.. versionadded:: 3.6
.. _shlex-parsing-rules:
Parsing Rules
-------------
When operating in non-POSIX mode, :class:`~shlex.shlex` will try to obey to the
following rules.
* Quote characters are not recognized within words (``Do"Not"Separate`` is
parsed as the single word ``Do"Not"Separate``);
* Escape characters are not recognized;
* Enclosing characters in quotes preserve the literal value of all characters
within the quotes;
* Closing quotes separate words (``"Do"Separate`` is parsed as ``"Do"`` and
``Separate``);
* If :attr:`~shlex.whitespace_split` is ``False``, any character not
declared to be a word character, whitespace, or a quote will be returned as
a single-character token. If it is ``True``, :class:`~shlex.shlex` will only
split words in whitespaces;
* EOF is signaled with an empty string (``''``);
* It's not possible to parse empty strings, even if quoted.
When operating in POSIX mode, :class:`~shlex.shlex` will try to obey to the
following parsing rules.
* Quotes are stripped out, and do not separate words (``"Do"Not"Separate"`` is
parsed as the single word ``DoNotSeparate``);
* Non-quoted escape characters (e.g. ``'\'``) preserve the literal value of the
next character that follows;
* Enclosing characters in quotes which are not part of
:attr:`~shlex.escapedquotes` (e.g. ``"'"``) preserve the literal value
of all characters within the quotes;
* Enclosing characters in quotes which are part of
:attr:`~shlex.escapedquotes` (e.g. ``'"'``) preserves the literal value
of all characters within the quotes, with the exception of the characters
mentioned in :attr:`~shlex.escape`. The escape characters retain its
special meaning only when followed by the quote in use, or the escape
character itself. Otherwise the escape character will be considered a
normal character.
* EOF is signaled with a :const:`None` value;
* Quoted empty strings (``''``) are allowed.
.. _improved-shell-compatibility:
Improved Compatibility with Shells
----------------------------------
.. versionadded:: 3.6
The :class:`shlex` class provides compatibility with the parsing performed by
common Unix shells like ``bash``, ``dash``, and ``sh``. To take advantage of
this compatibility, specify the ``punctuation_chars`` argument in the
constructor. This defaults to ``False``, which preserves pre-3.6 behaviour.
However, if it is set to ``True``, then parsing of the characters ``();<>|&``
is changed: any run of these characters is returned as a single token. While
this is short of a full parser for shells (which would be out of scope for the
standard library, given the multiplicity of shells out there), it does allow
you to perform processing of command lines more easily than you could
otherwise. To illustrate, you can see the difference in the following snippet:
.. doctest::
:options: +NORMALIZE_WHITESPACE
>>> import shlex
>>> text = "a && b; c && d || e; f >'abc'; (def \"ghi\")"
>>> s = shlex.shlex(text, posix=True)
>>> s.whitespace_split = True
>>> list(s)
['a', '&&', 'b;', 'c', '&&', 'd', '||', 'e;', 'f', '>abc;', '(def', 'ghi)']
>>> s = shlex.shlex(text, posix=True, punctuation_chars=True)
>>> s.whitespace_split = True
>>> list(s)
['a', '&&', 'b', ';', 'c', '&&', 'd', '||', 'e', ';', 'f', '>', 'abc', ';',
'(', 'def', 'ghi', ')']
Of course, tokens will be returned which are not valid for shells, and you'll
need to implement your own error checks on the returned tokens.
Instead of passing ``True`` as the value for the punctuation_chars parameter,
you can pass a string with specific characters, which will be used to determine
which characters constitute punctuation. For example::
>>> import shlex
>>> s = shlex.shlex("a && b || c", punctuation_chars="|")
>>> list(s)
['a', '&', '&', 'b', '||', 'c']
.. note:: When ``punctuation_chars`` is specified, the :attr:`~shlex.wordchars`
attribute is augmented with the characters ``~-./*?=``. That is because these
characters can appear in file names (including wildcards) and command-line
arguments (e.g. ``--color=auto``). Hence::
>>> import shlex
>>> s = shlex.shlex('~/a && b-c --color=auto || d *.py?',
... punctuation_chars=True)
>>> list(s)
['~/a', '&&', 'b-c', '--color=auto', '||', 'd', '*.py?']
However, to match the shell as closely as possible, it is recommended to
always use ``posix`` and :attr:`~shlex.whitespace_split` when using
:attr:`~shlex.punctuation_chars`, which will negate
:attr:`~shlex.wordchars` entirely.
For best effect, ``punctuation_chars`` should be set in conjunction with
``posix=True``. (Note that ``posix=False`` is the default for
:class:`~shlex.shlex`.)
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