Question

I try to move some dos command from my batch file into python but get this error, The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect, for the following statement.

subprocess.Popen('rd /s /q .\ProcessControlSimulator\bin', shell=True, 
                  stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)

if I just copy that dos command into window console, it works. The os.getcwd() gave me expected working directory.

My questions are:
1. why is that?
2. how to avoid that? do I need to get current working directory and construct an abstract path for that command? how to do that?

thanks

Answer 1

\ (backslash) is an escape character within string constants, so your string ends up changed. Use double \s (like so \\) within string constants:

subprocess.Popen('rd /s /q .\\ProcessControlSimulator\\bin', shell=True, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)