Unicode filename to python subprocess.call() [duplicate]

Answer 1

If your file exists, you can use short filename (aka 8.3 name). This name is defined for existent files, and should cause no trouble to non-Unicode aware programs when passed as argument.

One way to obtain one (needs Pywin32 to be installed):

import win32api
short_path = win32api.GetShortPathName(unicode_path)

Alternatively, you can also use ctypes:

import ctypes
import ctypes.wintypes

ctypes.windll.kernel32.GetShortPathNameW.argtypes = [
    ctypes.wintypes.LPCWSTR, # lpszLongPath
    ctypes.wintypes.LPWSTR, # lpszShortPath
    ctypes.wintypes.DWORD # cchBuffer
]
ctypes.windll.kernel32.GetShortPathNameW.restype = ctypes.wintypes.DWORD

buf = ctypes.create_unicode_buffer(1024) # adjust buffer size, if necessary
ctypes.windll.kernel32.GetShortPathNameW(unicode_path, buf, len(buf))

short_path = buf.value