Question

I have a script that is automating author re-writes on a number of git repositories.

def filter_history(old, new, name, repoPath):

command = """--env-filter '
        an="$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME"
        am="$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL"
        cn="$GIT_COMMITTER_NAME"
        cm="$GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL"

        if [[ "$GIT_COMMITTER_NAME" = "|old|" ]]
        then
            cn="|name|"
            cm="|new|"
        fi

        if [[ "$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME" = "|old|" ]]
        then
            an="|name|"
            am="|new|"
        fi

        export GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="$an"
        export GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL="$am"
        export GIT_COMMITTER_NAME="$cn"
        export GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL="$cm"
'
"""

#DO string replace
command = command.replace("|old|", old)
command = command.replace("|new|", new)
command = command.replace("|name|", name)

print "git filter-branch -f " + command

process = subprocess.Popen(['git filter-branch -f', command],cwd=os.path.dirname(repoPath), shell=True)
process.wait()

The command executes fine, but tells me that nothing changed in the repo history. However, if I take the command that is printed out (which should be what is being executed), drop it in a shell script, and execute it, it changes the history fine. I think that the command is somehow not being executed correctly. Is there any way for be to see exactly what command the subprocess module is executing?

Answer 1

When you use shell = True, subprocess.Popen expects a string as its first argument. It is better not to use shell = True if you can help it, since it can be a security risk (see the Warning.

When you omit shell = True, or use shell = False, subprocess.Popen expects a list of arguments. You can generate that list of arguments from a string using shlex.split:

import shlex
import subprocess

def filter_history(old, new, name, repoPath):
    """Change author info
    """
    # http://help.github.com/change-author-info/
    # http://stackoverflow.com/a/3880493/190597
    command = """git filter-branch -f --env-filter '
        an="$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME"
        am="$GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL"
        cn="$GIT_COMMITTER_NAME"
        cm="$GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL"

        if [[ "$GIT_COMMITTER_NAME" = "{old}" ]]
        then
            cn="{name}"
            cm="{new}"
        fi

        if [[ "$GIT_AUTHOR_NAME" = "{old}" ]]
        then
            an="{name}"
            am="{new}"
        fi

        export GIT_AUTHOR_NAME="$an"
        export GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL="$am"
        export GIT_COMMITTER_NAME="$cn"
        export GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL="$cm"
      '
      """.format(old = old, new = new, name = name)

    process = subprocess.Popen(
        shlex.split(command),
        cwd = os.path.dirname(repoPath))
    process.communicate()