<s>[INST] How do I execute a program from python? os.system fails due to spaces in path I have a python script that needs to execute an external program, but for some reason fails.
If I have the following script:
import os;
os.system("C:\\Temp\\a b c\\Notepad.exe");
raw_input();

Then it fails with the following error:
'C:\Temp\a' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

If I escape the program with quotes:
import os;
os.system('"C:\\Temp\\a b c\\Notepad.exe"');
raw_input();

Then it works. However, if I add a parameter, it stops working again:
import os;
os.system('"C:\\Temp\\a b c\\Notepad.exe" "C:\\test.txt"');
raw_input();

What is the right way to execute a program and wait for it to complete? I do not need to read output from it, as it is a visual program that does a job and then just exits, but I need to wait for it to complete.
Also note, moving the program to a non-spaced path is not an option either.

Edit This does not work either:
import os;
os.system("'C:\\Temp\\a b c\\Notepad.exe'");
raw_input();

Note the swapped single/double quotes.
with or without a parameter to notepad here, it fails with the error message
The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.

 [/INST] subprocess.call will avoid problems with having to deal with quoting conventions of various shells. It accepts a list, rather than a string, so arguments are more easily delimited. i.e.
import subprocess
subprocess.call(['C:\\Temp\\a b c\\Notepad.exe', 'C:\\test.txt'])

 </s>