Accept path-like arguments in shlex.join()

[FFY00]

Feature or enhancement

Proposal:

A common use-case of shlex.join is to get a shell-like invocation of a command.

In my experience, when writing small custom scripts, it is very common to use shlex.join in conjunction with subprocess.run, to log the command invocation to the output. subprocess.run has accepted path-like arguments since 3.6 on POSIX, and 3.8 on Windows, so when we want to use shutil.join, we need extra code to convert the path-like objects in the command sequence to strings.

It would be nice if shutil.join could receive the same command sequence as subprocess.run.

Has this already been discussed elsewhere?

No response given

Links to previous discussion of this feature:

GH-72809 proposed this for shlex.quote.

[picnixz]

If shlex.quote already accepts path-like objects, then it ought to be better if shlex.join does so as well.

EDIT: The feature was rejected for shlex.quote actually!

[FFY00]

It doesn't, the proposal was rejected.

[picnixz]

Yes, I actually didn't read the other issue entirely as it was marked as completed and not "not planned"!

I think the argument of "shlex.quote() takes a string, not a path (semantically)" also apply here then. shlex.join() joins shell arguments, not path components. Wouldn't shlex.join(map(str, split_command)) be sufficient?

[picnixz]

While I can guess why subprocess.run() accepts path-like objects, shlex.join is (semantically) dedicated to lexical analysis. So... I'm rather -0 on this. What was the rationale for accepting path-like objects in subprocess.run()?

See #76142 for the rationale for subprocess.run(). There was still a long discussion that I haven't read yet though.