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<title>5.21.2 Parsing Rules
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<H2><A NAME=
"SECTION0072120000000000000000"></A><A NAME=
"shlex-parsing-rules"></A>
When operating in non-POSIX mode,
<tt class=
"class">shlex
</tt> will try to obey to
<LI>Quote characters are not recognized within words
(
<code>Do
"Not"Separate
</code> is parsed as the single word
<code>Do
"Not"Separate
</code>);
<LI>Escape characters are not recognized;
<LI>Enclosing characters in quotes preserve the literal value of
all characters within the quotes;
<LI>Closing quotes separate words (
<code>"Do"Separate
</code> is parsed
as
<code>"Do"</code> and
<code>Separate
</code>);
<LI>If
<tt class=
"member">whitespace_split
</tt> is
<code>False
</code>, any character not
declared to be a word character, whitespace, or a quote will be
returned as a single-character token. If it is
<code>True
</code>,
<tt class=
"class">shlex
</tt> will only split words in whitespaces;
<LI>EOF is signaled with an empty string (
<code>''
</code>);
<LI>It's not possible to parse empty strings, even if quoted.
When operating in POSIX mode,
<tt class=
"class">shlex
</tt> will try to obey to the
<LI>Quotes are stripped out, and do not separate words
(
<code>"Do"Not
"Separate"</code> is parsed as the single word
<code>DoNotSeparate
</code>);
<LI>Non-quoted escape characters (e.g.
"<tt class="character
">\</tt>")
preserve the literal value of the next character that follows;
<LI>Enclosing characters in quotes which are not part of
<tt class=
"member">escapedquotes
</tt> (e.g.
"<tt class="character
">'</tt>") preserve the literal
value of all characters within the quotes;
<LI>Enclosing characters in quotes which are part of
<tt class=
"member">escapedquotes
</tt> (e.g.
"<tt class="character
">"</tt>") preserves the literal
value of all characters within the quotes, with the exception of
the characters mentioned in <tt class="member
">escape</tt>. The escape characters
retain its special meaning only when followed by the quote in use,
or the escape character itself. Otherwise the escape character
will be considered a normal character.
<LI>EOF is signaled with a <tt class="constant
">None</tt> value;
<LI>Quoted empty strings (<code>''</code>) are allowed;
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<span class="release-info
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