in reply to system() implementation on Windows (again)

I recommend to create a small Perl script: 

# file joined-echo.pl
print join('||', @ARGV), "\n";

[download]

And use system($^X, 'joined-echo.pl', @rest_of_your_args) for testing - that way you know exactly that the command you're testing doesn't do any magical argument processing on its own.

Perl 6 - second systems done right

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: system() implementation on Windows (again)
by Anonymous Monk on Aug 19, 2011 at 13:13 UTC

    Yes, tried that. And guess what... I get arguments split (by spaces) before the executable specified in the system() call is run.

    So if this is the content of my "main" perl script: 

    my $txt = '/w my > text >= [with] \ symbols " /wabc/def (xyz)';
system($^X, 'joined-echo.pl', $txt, 'ARG2');

    [download]

    ...Then this is the output: 

    /w||my||>||text||>=||[with]||\||symbols|| /wabc/def (xyz) ARG2

    [download]

    As one can see, the perl called by system() does not get 2 arguments - as I would expect - but much more. Mhmm.

[reply]
[d/l]
[select]

      See exec always invokes the shell? win32, the situation is brainfuck-cubed

      The way I get around it, is to always pretend like I'm typing in cmd.exe 

      #!/usr/bin/perl --
use strict;
use warnings;

if( @ARGV ){
    print join "\n", map({"( $_ )"} @ARGV), "\n";
} else {
    my $txt = '/w my > text >= [with] \ symbols " /wabc/def (xyz)';
    my( @args ) = win32_quote(  'perl', __FILE__, $txt, 'ARG2', );
    print "YOU CAN TYPE THIS AT THE cmd.exe PROMPT\n   @args\n\n";
## command.com doesn't like it (it wants "perl" to be perl)
## i don't know what powershell does :)
    system @args;
}

sub win32_quote {
    my( @args ) = @_;
    s~
(
 [%><|&^"]
)
    ~
{
 '%' => '^%',
 '>' => '^>',
 '<' => '^<',
 '"' => '\\"',
 '&' => '^&',
 '|' => '^|',

}->{$1}
    ~gex  for @args;
    $_=qq["$_"] for @args;
    return @args;
}

__END__
D:\>perl win32.quote.pl
YOU CAN TYPE THIS AT THE cmd.exe PROMPT
   "perl" "win32.quote.pl" "/w my ^> text ^>= [with] \ symbols \" /wab
+c/def (xyz)" "ARG2"

( /w my ^> text ^>= [with] \ symbols " /wabc/def (xyz) )
( ARG2 )


D:\>"perl" "win32.quote.pl" "/w my ^> text ^>= [with] \ symbols \" /wa
+bc/def (xyz)" "ARG2"
( /w my ^> text ^>= [with] \ symbols " /wabc/def (xyz) )
( ARG2 )

      [download]
[reply]
[d/l]

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom