<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <link rel="STYLESHEET" href="lib.css" type='text/css' /> <link rel="SHORTCUT ICON" href="../icons/pyfav.gif" /> <link rel='start' href='../index.html' title='Python Documentation Index' /> <link rel="first" href="lib.html" title='Python Library Reference' /> <link rel='contents' href='contents.html' title="Contents" /> <link rel='index' href='genindex.html' title='Index' /> <link rel='last' href='about.html' title='About this document...' /> <link rel='help' href='about.html' title='About this document...' /> <LINK rel="prev" href="shlex-objects.html"> <LINK rel="parent" href="module-shlex.html"> <LINK rel="next" href="allos.html"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /> <meta name='aesop' content='information' /> <META name="description" content="Parsing Rules"> <META name="keywords" content="lib"> <META name="resource-type" content="document"> <META name="distribution" content="global"> <title>5.20.3 Parsing Rules</title> </head> <body> <DIV CLASS="navigation"> <div id='top-navigation-panel'> <table align="center" width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2"> <tr> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="prev" title="5.20.2 shlex Objects" href="shlex-objects.html"><img src='../icons/previous.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Previous Page' width='32' /></A></td> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="parent" title="5.20 shlex " href="module-shlex.html"><img src='../icons/up.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Up One Level' width='32' /></A></td> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="next" title="6. 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Generic Operating System</A> </div> <hr /></div> </DIV> <!--End of Navigation Panel--> <H2><A NAME="SECTION0072030000000000000000"><!--x--></A><A NAME="shlex-parsing-rules"><!--z--></A> <BR> 5.20.3 Parsing Rules </H2> <P> When operating in non-POSIX mode, <tt class="class">shlex</tt> will try to obey to the following rules. <P> <UL> <LI>Quote characters are not recognized within words (<code>Do"Not"Separate</code> is parsed as the single word <code>Do"Not"Separate</code>); </LI> <LI>Escape characters are not recognized; </LI> <LI>Enclosing characters in quotes preserve the literal value of all characters within the quotes; </LI> <LI>Closing quotes separate words (<code>"Do"Separate</code> is parsed as <code>"Do"</code> and <code>Separate</code>); </LI> <LI>If <tt class="member">whitespace_split</tt> is <code>False</code>, any character not declared to be a word character, whitespace, or a quote will be returned as a single-character token. If it is <code>True</code>, <tt class="class">shlex</tt> will only split words in whitespaces; </LI> <LI>EOF is signaled with an empty string (<code>''</code>); </LI> <LI>It's not possible to parse empty strings, even if quoted. </LI> </UL> <P> When operating in POSIX mode, <tt class="class">shlex</tt> will try to obey to the following parsing rules. <P> <UL> <LI>Quotes are stripped out, and do not separate words (<code>"Do"Not"Separate"</code> is parsed as the single word <code>DoNotSeparate</code>); </LI> <LI>Non-quoted escape characters (e.g. "<tt class="character">\</tt>") preserve the literal value of the next character that follows; </LI> <LI>Enclosing characters in quotes which are not part of <tt class="member">escapedquotes</tt> (e.g. "<tt class="character">'</tt>") preserve the literal value of all characters within the quotes; </LI> <LI>Enclosing characters in quotes which are part of <tt class="member">escapedquotes</tt> (e.g. "<tt class="character">"</tt>") preserves the literal value of all characters within the quotes, with the exception of the characters mentioned in <tt class="member">escape</tt>. 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. </LI> <LI>EOF is signaled with a <code>None</code> value; </LI> <LI>Quoted empty strings (<code>''</code>) are allowed; </LI> </UL> <P> <DIV CLASS="navigation"> <div class='online-navigation'><hr /> <table align="center" width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2"> <tr> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="prev" title="5.20.2 shlex Objects" rel="prev" title="5.20.2 shlex Objects" href="shlex-objects.html"><img src='../icons/previous.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Previous Page' width='32' /></A></td> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="parent" title="5.20 shlex " rel="parent" title="5.20 shlex " href="module-shlex.html"><img src='../icons/up.png' border='0' height='32' alt='Up One Level' width='32' /></A></td> <td class='online-navigation'><a rel="next" title="6. 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Generic Operating System</A> </div> </div> <hr /> <span class="release-info">Release 2.3.4, documentation updated on May 20, 2004.</span> </DIV> <!--End of Navigation Panel--> <ADDRESS> See <i><a href="about.html">About this document...</a></i> for information on suggesting changes. </ADDRESS> </BODY> </HTML>