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Subject: RE: Bash fails to run .bat file with spaces in pathname and argument
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 06:52:52 -0400
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From: "Buchbinder, Barry \(NIH/NIAID\) [E]" <BBuchbinder AT niaid DOT nih DOT gov>
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* Johnathon Jamison (Wed, 11 Oct 2006 14:11:12 -0700)
> I am having some funny behavior.  If I have a .bat file that is in a 
> directory whose pathname contains a space, and an argument is given 
> to the .bat file that has a space in it, then the .bat file fails to
run.
> Instead, I get "'xxx' is not recognized as an internal or external 
> command, operable program or batch file." where xxx is the portion of 
> the complete path to the .bat file before the first space.
>
> I am not sure why this is occurring.  Any help would be appreciated.  
> I have more specific information and a sample run below.  If I have 
> left anything out, just ask.  In particular, I am not sure which 
> version numbers would be needed, or where to find (many of) them.

The problem is, at least in part, with cmd.  cmd /? says:

  If /C or /K is specified, then the remainder of the command line after
  the switch is processed as a command line, where the following logic
is
  used to process quote (") characters:

      1.  If all of the following conditions are met, then quote
characters
          on the command line are preserved:

          - no /S switch
          - exactly two quote characters
          - no special characters between the two quote characters,
            where special is one of: &<>()@^|
          - there are one or more whitespace characters between the
            the two quote characters
          - the string between the two quote characters is the name
            of an executable file.

      2.  Otherwise, old behavior is to see if the first character is
          a quote character and if so, strip the leading character and
          remove the last quote character on the command line,
preserving
          any text after the last quote character.

Try using short names to get rid of the first set of quotes.  Short
names still work, at least on XP.  Compare
  c:\>dir docume~1
and
  c:\>dir "Documents and Settings"

To find out the short names,
  c:\>dir /x
Or one can guess (first 6 characters + "~" + "1", or a higher digit if
the 6 characters + "~1" is already used, + "." + first 3 characters of
the extension).

Try changing the batch file from
  echo %1
to
  echo %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
That should work by getting rid of the second set of quotes, at least if
the number of arguments is less than 10.

This, also, works

  /c> echo '"c:\Documents and Settings\BBuchbinder\test.bat" "hello
world"
  exit' | u2d | cmd /k
  c:\>"c:\Documents and Settings\BBuchbinder\test.bat" "hello world"

  c:\>echo "hello world"
  "hello world"

  c:\>exit

You can leave off the "/k", but you then get extraneous text from
cmd.exe as it loads.


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