bash query through Python subprocess, bash variables wont expand

Question

I'm doing a bash query using subprocess over SSH (don't ask). The query includes using find with the -exec option, however, on the remote target host, {} won't expand properly, when viewing what the query actually does on the target host.

For example: find / -name "hello.txt" -exec echo {} \; where {} should read hello.txt but it merely reads just as {}.

So, what I'm I missing here?

Thanks in advance.

Andrew Clark · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-28 20:45:28Z

4

It would be helpful if you posted some code, but my guess is that you are not including shell=True in your subprocess arguments, which is necessary for the variable expansion. For example:

subprocess.Popen('find / -name "hello.txt" -exec echo {} \;', shell=True)

answered Jul 28, 2011 at 20:45

Andrew Clark

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1 Comment

Anders Over a year ago

Yupp, I know :-) Code is on another machine. But you're correct, using shell=False.

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