How do I execute a program from Python? os.system fails due to spaces in path

Question

I have a Python script that needs to execute an external program, but for some reason fails.

If I have the following script:

import os;
os.system(\"C         


        

Answer 1

The outermost quotes are consumed by Python itself, and the Windows shell doesn't see it. As mentioned above, Windows only understands double-quotes. Python will convert forward-slashed to backslashes on Windows, so you can use

os.system('"C://Temp/a b c/Notepad.exe"')

The ' is consumed by Python, which then passes "C://Temp/a b c/Notepad.exe" (as a Windows path, no double-backslashes needed) to CMD.EXE