bennyroh has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I am trying to use the win32::fileop module to map a drive. Here is the actual code below: 
$drive = Map "$sh",{user=>"$us",pass=>"$pa",domain=>"$do"};

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The variables above contain the following values: 
$sh = '\\\\machine1\\d\$'
$us = 'username'
$pa = 'password'
$do = 'domain'

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I keep getting the following error: 
"The specified device name is invalid."

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However, if I were to cut and paste the exact values above and insert them into the Map statement, the process works beautifully. I have tried various combinations of single and double quotes, escaping each and then without escaping, with and without the quotes. How do I pass values/options to the Map function through variables?

Thanks

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Re: Mapping a drive with Win32::Fileop
by ikegami (Patriarch) on May 11, 2008 at 20:08 UTC

    $sh = '\\\\machine1\\d\$';
    should be
    $sh = '\\\\machine1\\d$';
    or
    $sh = "\\\\machine1\\d\$"; 

    $\ = "\n";
print '\\\\machine1\\d\$';   # \\machine1\d\$
print '\\\\machine1\\d$';    # \\machine1\d$
print "\\\\machine1\\d\$";   # \\machine1\d$

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    Update:

    Some elaboration:

    In single quotes strings, you need to escape the delimiter (single quotes) and backslashes followed by another backslash. Lone backslashes may optionally be escaped.

    In double quotes strings, you must escape $ (unless you want to interpolate), @ (unless you want to interpolate), the delimiter (double quotes) and backslashes. Other non-alphanumeric characters may optionally be escaped.

    Update:

    By the way,
    {user=>"$us",pass=>"$pa",domain=>"$do"}
    is better written as
    {user=>$us,pass=>$pa,domain=>$do}
    Putting quotes around variables needlessly makes a string copy of them.

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Re: Mapping a drive with Win32::Fileop
by pc88mxer (Vicar) on May 11, 2008 at 23:53 UTC
    There's gotta be a better way to avoid backslash-hell. How about: 
    my $b = "\\";
$sh = "$b${b}machine1${b}d\$";

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    or is there another perl mechanism that can ease the pain of dealing with backslashes and other meta-characters in strings?

    Of course, the best way it avoid using them, but what if you are forced to?

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      He can get away with only one extra slash if he uses single quotes: '\\\machine\d$'. But that's just confusing the issue. Remembering how to do it these ways is harder than learning how it works.

      Alternatively, he could use '//machine/d$' since Windows accepts either slashes. Tools don't necessarily accept either slash (especially unquoted), but the system does.

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      ( my $b= '//machine1/d$' ) =~ tr-/-\\-;

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      - tye        

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