def shell_split(text):
    """
    Split the string `text` using shell-like syntax

    This avoids breaking single/double-quoted strings (e.g. containing
    strings with spaces). This function is almost equivalent to the shlex.split
    function (see standard library `shlex`) except that it is supporting
    unicode strings (shlex does not support unicode until Python 2.7.3).
    """
    assert is_text_string(text)  # in case a QString is passed...
    pattern = r'(\s+|(?<!\\)".*?(?<!\\)"|(?<!\\)\'.*?(?<!\\)\')'
    out = []
    for token in re.split(pattern, text):
        if token.strip():
            out.append(token.strip('"').strip("'"))
    return out
Split the string `text` using shell-like syntax

    This avoids breaking single/double-quoted strings (e.g. containing
    strings with spaces). This function is almost equivalent to the shlex.split
    function (see standard library `shlex`) except that it is supporting
    unicode strings (shlex does not support unicode until Python 2.7.3).