## 5.20.1 Module Contents

The `shlex` module defines the following functions:

`split`( | s[, comments=`False`])

  Split the string s using shell-like syntax. If comments is `False`, the parsing of comments in the given string will be disabled (setting the `commenters` member of the `shlex` instance to the empty string). This function operates in POSIX mode. New in version 2.3.

The `shlex` module defines the following classes:

class `shlex`( | [instream=`sys.stdin`[, infile=`None`[, posix=`False`]]])

  A `shlex` instance or subclass instance is a lexical analyzer object. The initialization argument, if present, specifies where to read characters from. It must be a file-/stream-like object with `read()` and `readline()` methods, or a string (strings are accepted since Python 2.3). If no argument is given, input will be taken from `sys.stdin`. The second optional argument is a filename string, which sets the initial value of the `infile` member. If the instream argument is omitted or equal to `sys.stdin`, this second argument defaults to ``stdin''. The posix argument was introduced in Python 2.3, and defines the operational mode. When posix is not true (default), the `shlex` instance will operate in compatibility mode. When operating in POSIX mode, `shlex` will try to be as close as possible to the POSIX shell parsing rules. See 5.20.2.