Quick tip: Using Python’s expandvars() with quoted variables on Windows

I recently encountered an elusive bug, which eventually I tracked down to the fact that environment variables are not replaced in a certain string even though it is set by calling os.path.expandvars(original string).

Turns out, the problem is that expandvars() doesn’t expand variables who are enclosed within a string literal. I couldn’t find it documented anywhere but facts are, this is the case.

Small example:

>>> import os
>>> os.environ['VAR1'] = 'Value1'
>>> s1 = "this is '%VAR1%'"
>>> os.path.expandvars(s1)
"this is '%VAR1%'"
>>> s2 = "this is %VAR1%"
>>> os.path.expandvars(s2)
'this is Value1'

It may be a good idea in some cases, but for me it was quite an annoyance.

So, how to overcome this?