[IPython-user] Specifying argv as a list

[Asheesh Laroia]

One problem with the shell is the difficulty of expressing the argv, which 
is truly a list, in space-delimited form.  The space-delimted arguments 
becomes a problem when you accept variables from others, for example; 
shell metacharacters have to be escaped, and this is often a troublesome 
problem.  It also goes against the "Explicit is better than implicit" 
guideline of Python.

Is there a way for me to type out arguments to regular UNIX programs as a 
list rather than an implicit list separated by " "?

The best user interface I can imagine to this is that when you type "!ls" 
and press space, the input transforms before your eyes to:

 	! ["ls", "

I might then press the hyphen key, the 'l' key, and then enter, and the 
command-line would autocomplete that to:

 	! ["ls", "-l"])

and then show me the output.

A basic version would simply allow me to manually type:

 	lout(['ls', '-l'])

and show me the result as I'd expect.

I like showing argv to the user as a list because that's precisely what it 
is.  This also allows more natural variable insertion and Python 
integration.  For example:

 	RMARG="-i"
 	! ['rm', RMARG, '''Some "loser"'s file''']

Thoughts?

-- Asheesh.

-- 
Depart not from the path which fate has assigned you.