add split_commandline helper

that splits ;-separated commandlines safely using shlex

1 files changed, 15 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/alot/helper.py b/alot/helper.py
index 3e5e9dce..ad605acb 100644
--- a/alot/helper.py
+++ b/alot/helper.py
@@ -24,6 +24,21 @@ import StringIO
 import logging
 
 
+def split_commandline(s, comments=False, posix=True):
+    """
+    splits semi-colon separated commandlines
+    """
+    # encode s to utf-8 for shlex
+    if isinstance(s, unicode):
+        s = s.encode('utf-8')
+    lex = shlex.shlex(s, posix=posix)
+    lex.whitespace_split = True
+    lex.whitespace = ';'
+    if not comments:
+        lex.commenters = ''
+    return list(lex)
+
+
 def split_commandstring(cmdstring):
     """
     split command string into a list of strings to pass on to subprocess.Popen