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That's a fair point, but I think it actually *improves* the argument for better helper functions, since we can have them automatically invoke shlex.quote() on all of the arguments:
 def _shell_format(cmd, args, kwds):
 args = map(shlex.quote, args)
 kwds = {k:shlex.quote(v) for k, v in kwds}
 return cmd.format(*args, **kwds)
 def _invoke_shell(func, cmd, args, kwds):
 return func(_shell_format(cmd, args, kwds), shell=True)
 def format_shell_call(cmd, *args, kwds):
 return _shell_format(cmd, args, kwds)
 def shell_call(cmd, *args, **kwds):
 return _invoke_shell(subprocess.call, cmds, args, kwds)
 def check_shell_call(cmd, *args, **kwds):
 return _invoke_shell(subprocess.check_call, cmds, args, kwds)
 def check_shell_output(cmd, *args, **kwds):
 return _invoke_shell(subprocess.check_output, cmds, args, kwds)