`fabtools.files.mode` does not work properly with character expansion about fabtools HOT 3 OPEN

Thanks for raising this isssue.

The quotes are needed when the path contains a space, so we’d need to find another way to make the ~ work.

Bash will only interpret it if it’s the first character of a token, so maybe we could do the expansion on the Python side?

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That the same happens with other characters, such as "*", or "?", so the expansion in python will not be trivial, and some lib that makes the job will be required.

Perhaps it could be easier to escape any spaces found in the string?

Anyway, bear in mind that this is not really an issue in fabtools but rather in the stats command, since using a string with stats in the command line fails equally, so perhaps just a warning in the docs about this stats behavior would be enough.

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Actually, most functions in fabtools currently expect a filename. Using globs (? or *) and ~ is not really supported, and may or may not work depending on the function you use.

To be safe, you need to use either the absolute filename like /home/user/.ssh/id_rsa or a relative filename like .ssh/id_rsa based on the current directory.

Tilde expansion is made by the shell, not the stat command. And the shell behavior is a bit tricky. It will expand the ~ to the user’s directory, but only if it’s the first character in a token. That’s why it does not work if you put quotes around it.

You’re right that doing it in Python would not be practical, and using backslashes to escape spaces instead of using quotes might be a good strategy.

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