I'm using Paramiko's exec_command() to run wp-cli commands on a remote server. Any command argument with spaces in it (no matter how I quote it) gives me a "Too many positional arguments" error. Here's sample code:

sshClient.exec_command("wp option update blogname \"Text with spaces\" 2>&1")

I've ssh'd into the remote machine from my local terminal and the command (wp option update blogname "Text with spaces") works fine there. I've also tried using combinations of double and single quotes.

Basically it's like the inner quotes are being ignored entirely and "Text with spaces" is being seen as 3 additional arguments. Is this about how Python parses strings with quotes, or about paramiko's exec_command()? What am I missing?

CodePudding user response：

So this ended up being an issue with how the shell handles quotes in a command. Thanks to Martin for his comment pointing me in the right direction. Here is what finally worked for me:

sshClient.exec_command("wp option update blogname '\"Text with spaces\"' 2>&1")

After some Googling, I found this guide very helpful in understanding what was going on:

Shell Command Line Quoting Mechanisms

My understanding of the issue is that the shell on the remote machine where the command is being run strips out quotes, and always uses spaces as separators for arguments. So in order for "Text with spaces" to be interpreted by the remote shell as a single argument, you have to wrap it in single quotes, and escaped double quotes.

With some deeper understanding of how the shell interprets commands it makes more sense, but at face value it's not intuitive at all.