Sed with space in python

Question

I was trying perform replace using sed in VMkernel. I used the following command,

sed s/myname/sample name/g txt.txt

I got an error saying sed: unmatched '/'. I replaced space with \. It worked.

When I tried the same using python,

def executeCommand(cmd):
   process = subprocess.Popen(cmd.split(), stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
   output, error = process.communicate()
   print (output.decode("utf-8")) 
executeCommand('sed s/myname/sample\ name/g txt.txt')

I am getting the error sed: unmatched '/' again. I used \s instead of space I am getting the name replaced with samplesname.

How can I replace a string with space?

Answer 1

The simplest thing would be to not be smart about splitting the command:

executeCommand(['sed', 's/myname/sample name/g', 'txt.txt'])

Otherwise you are opening a can of worms, effectively playing a shell parser role.

---

Alternatively you may run the command in a shell and let the shell parse and run the command:

import subprocess

def executeCommand(cmd):
   process = subprocess.Popen(cmd, shell=True, stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
   # Or:
   # This will run the command in /bin/bash (instead of /bin/sh)
   process = subprocess.Popen(['/bin/bash', '-c', cmd], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
   output, error = process.communicate()
   print (output.decode("utf-8")) 

executeCommand("sed 's/myname/sample name/g' txt.txt")