Kindly offline the answer is: (a) Python installation usually includes source, and thus (b) UTSL:
$ pwd C:\Python25\Lib\shlex.py $ ... $ pwd /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/lib/python2.5 $ grep -A 5 "def split" shlex.py def split(s, comments=False): lex = shlex(s, posix=True) lex.whitespace_split = True if not comments: lex.commenters = '' return list(lex) $ Voila the THREE undocumented ways that shlex.split has been overriding the shlex.shlex defaults: nothing in wordchars, yes something in whitespace_split, but also stuff in commenters and in posix. (Of these, the posix override is documented.) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list