While a handy trick, it doesn't entirely solve the original problem when the values have dynamic content. In your example, replace 10 with $FOO and then you are back to square one, having to escape python-strings within a shell-string. Better avoid the problem entirely by not using shell to begin with. To instead continue on the dirty track, replace 10 with int(sys.argv[1]) and call it as python -c "..." $FOO.
Comments
While a handy trick, it doesn't entirely solve the original problem when the values have dynamic content. In your example, replace 10 with $FOO and then you are back to square one, having to escape python-strings within a shell-string. Better avoid the problem entirely by not using shell to begin with. To instead continue on the dirty track, replace 10 with int(sys.argv[1]) and call it as python -c "..." $FOO.