@gpshead, @pablogsal, @ezio-melotti: What do you think of removing the function and modify script_helper functions to no longer strip whitespaces? If plan to do both changes anyway :-)

This looks good assuming we don't want the testsuite to pass when -X showrefcount is set. do we?

This looks good assuming we don't want the testsuite to pass when -X showrefcount is set. do we?

It seems like the test suite pass with this change and -X showrefcount:
https://bugs.python.org/issue38991#msg357960

test.support.args_from_interpreter_flags() doesn't inherit -X showrefcount to child processes.

Or do you think that test.support.args_from_interpreter_flags() should be modified to inherit -X showrefcount?

I never used -X showrefcount. I'm not sure if anyone uses it.

--

Multiple tests fail if I modify Python to force showrefcount:

diff --git a/Python/initconfig.c b/Python/initconfig.c
index caa9bf5f56..800d91c558 100644
--- a/Python/initconfig.c
+++ b/Python/initconfig.c
@@ -603,6 +603,8 @@ _PyConfig_InitCompatConfig(PyConfig *config)
 #ifdef MS_WINDOWS
     config->legacy_windows_stdio = -1;
 #endif
+
+    config->show_ref_count = 1;
 }

sounds like we're all good then, lets not inherit -X showrefcount, that'll just cause headaches :)

Thanks for your review @gpshead and @serhiy-storchaka ;-)