venv: '!' in --prompt breaks activate.csh (csh history expansion)
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Description
Bug report
venv quotes substituted strings in its activation scripts with POSIX
shlex.quote() for every script except .ps1/.bat (gh-124651). That is
wrong for activate.csh: (t)csh performs history expansion on ! even
inside single quotes, so a --prompt (or path) containing ! followed by a
word character produces an activate.csh that fails to source.
Reproducer
$ python -m venv --prompt 'py!env' /tmp/env
$ csh -c 'source /tmp/env/bin/activate.csh'
env: Event not found.
activate.csh runs setenv VIRTUAL_ENV_PROMPT 'py!env'; csh history-expands
!env, the line errors, and activation aborts (VIRTUAL_ENV/prompt unset).
Both csh and tcsh are affected; bash/zsh activate and activate.fish
are not (POSIX-compatible single quotes).
Cause
Lib/venv/__init__.py:replace_variables() dispatches the quoting function by
script suffix (.ps1 -> quote_ps1, .bat -> quote_bat, else -> shlex.quote).
activate.csh falls into the POSIX branch, which does not account for csh
history expansion.
Scope
--prompt is the cleanest case: the venv path is clean, so source works and
only the substituted prompt breaks -- fully fixable in venv. A ! in the venv
directory path is also mis-quoted by venv internally (same root cause), but
note that activating such a venv additionally requires the user to escape the
! in their own source <path> command line, which is outside venv's control.
Fix
Add a quote_csh that escapes !, and dispatch on .csh -- mirroring the
existing quote_ps1/quote_bat handling. Verified under csh and tcsh:
!, quotes, $, backtick, ;, &&, spaces, parens round-trip. (A newline
cannot be represented in a csh single-quoted string; that remains out of scope
and is unchanged from current behavior.)
Not a security issue: csh errors out rather than executing anything.
Linked PRs
- gh-152687
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start in Lib/venv/init.py at replace_variables() and compare its existing quote_ps1 and quote_bat dispatch. Reproduce the failure with a --prompt containing !, then source the generated activate.csh under csh and tcsh. Done means the prompt and other listed special characters round-trip without activation failing.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python, shell
- Domain
- cli, tooling
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 2/5
- Estimated time
- 1-3 hours
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Clearly specified
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100