cygstart doesn't handle question marks in mailto URLs

cygstart doesn't handle question marks in mailto URLs

[Ken Brown]

If I type `cygstart mailto:recipient?subject=subject' at a Cygwin bash 
prompt, I expect my default Windows mail program to start an outgoing 
message with `recipient' as recipient and `subject' as subject.  (This 
is what happens if I type the same URL into a `Start Menu -> Run' box.) 
  What happens instead is that `recipient?subject=subject' shows up as 
the recipient, with the question mark replaced by something unprintable, 
and the subject is blank.

Is this a bug in cygstart, or am I misunderstanding something?

My reason for asking this is that I'm testing xdg-utils, which is 
currently available in Cygwin Ports but which will probably be added to 
the Cygwin distro at some point.  I would like xdg-open to be able to 
handle mailto URLs correctly if I export BROWSER=cygstart.

Ken

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Re: cygstart doesn't handle question marks in mailto URLs

[Ryan Johnson]

On 30/03/2012 9:27 AM, Ken Brown wrote:
> If I type `cygstart mailto:recipient?subject=subject' at a Cygwin bash 
> prompt, I expect my default Windows mail program to start an outgoing 
> message with `recipient' as recipient and `subject' as subject. (This 
> is what happens if I type the same URL into a `Start Menu -> Run' 
> box.) What happens instead is that `recipient?subject=subject' shows 
> up as the recipient, with the question mark replaced by something 
> unprintable, and the subject is blank.

The same behavior is observed with `cygpath -wa ?' (and also cygpath -w, 
if the path passed in was non-trivial):
> $ cygpath -wa ?
> C:\cygwin\home\Ryan\
>
> $ cygpath -w ?
> ?
>
> $ cygpath -w ../?
> C:\cygwin\home\

FYI, the "unprintable" character is U+F03F, which is not even a valid 
unicode character.

> Is this a bug in cygstart, or am I misunderstanding something?
I suspect a bug in the way cygwin1.dll handles conversion from unix- to 
windows-style paths.

Ryan


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Re: cygstart doesn't handle question marks in mailto URLs

[Ryan Johnson]

On 30/03/2012 9:43 AM, Ryan Johnson wrote:
> On 30/03/2012 9:27 AM, Ken Brown wrote:
>> If I type `cygstart mailto:recipient?subject=subject' at a Cygwin 
>> bash prompt, I expect my default Windows mail program to start an 
>> outgoing message with `recipient' as recipient and `subject' as 
>> subject. (This is what happens if I type the same URL into a `Start 
>> Menu -> Run' box.) What happens instead is that 
>> `recipient?subject=subject' shows up as the recipient, with the 
>> question mark replaced by something unprintable, and the subject is 
>> blank.
>
> FYI, the "unprintable" character is U+F03F, which is not even a valid 
> unicode character.
... and, coincidentally, the ascii code for '?' is 0x3f.

Ryan


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Re: cygstart doesn't handle question marks in mailto URLs

[Corinna Vinschen]

On Mar 30 09:43, Ryan Johnson wrote:
> On 30/03/2012 9:27 AM, Ken Brown wrote:
> >If I type `cygstart mailto:recipient?subject=subject' at a Cygwin
> >bash prompt, I expect my default Windows mail program to start an
> >outgoing message with `recipient' as recipient and `subject' as
> >subject. (This is what happens if I type the same URL into a
> >`Start Menu -> Run' box.) What happens instead is that
> >`recipient?subject=subject' shows up as the recipient, with the
> >question mark replaced by something unprintable, and the subject
> >is blank.
> 
> The same behavior is observed with `cygpath -wa ?' (and also cygpath
> -w, if the path passed in was non-trivial):
> >$ cygpath -wa ?
> >C:\cygwin\home\Ryan\
> >
> >$ cygpath -w ?
> >?
> >
> >$ cygpath -w ../?
> >C:\cygwin\home\
> 
> FYI, the "unprintable" character is U+F03F, which is not even a
> valid unicode character.
> 
> >Is this a bug in cygstart, or am I misunderstanding something?
> I suspect a bug in the way cygwin1.dll handles conversion from unix-
> to windows-style paths.

http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#IAFNAB

http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using-specialnames.html#pathnames-specialchars


Corinna

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Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Project Co-Leader          cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Red Hat

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Re: cygstart doesn't handle question marks in mailto URLs

[Ryan Johnson]

On 30/03/2012 11:14 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> On Mar 30 09:43, Ryan Johnson wrote:
>> On 30/03/2012 9:27 AM, Ken Brown wrote:
>>> If I type `cygstart mailto:recipient?subject=subject' at a Cygwin
>>> bash prompt, I expect my default Windows mail program to start an
>>> outgoing message with `recipient' as recipient and `subject' as
>>> subject. (This is what happens if I type the same URL into a
>>> `Start Menu ->  Run' box.) What happens instead is that
>>> `recipient?subject=subject' shows up as the recipient, with the
>>> question mark replaced by something unprintable, and the subject
>>> is blank.
>>>
>>> Is this a bug in cygstart, or am I misunderstanding something?
>> I suspect a bug in the way cygwin1.dll handles conversion from unix-
>> to windows-style paths.
> http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#IAFNAB
>
> http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using-specialnames.html#pathnames-specialchars
Makes sense... for files, but we're dealing with a URL here, so it *is* 
a bug IMO (but you're right, not a bug in cygwin's handling of 
windows-style paths).

Cygstart knows it's dealing with a URL. It doesn't try to look for a 
file whose name starts with "mailto:", for example, nor does it escape 
the otherwise-forbidden ':' character.

The proper behavior would either enforce the forbidden character set and 
escaping methods that apply to URLs, or else pass the argument through 
unmodified and let Windows (or the target app) complain if there's a 
problem. Either way, though, "file:" urls would have to be a special case.

And yes, SHTDI, and TSINM (that somebody is not me).

Ryan


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Re: cygstart doesn't handle question marks in mailto URLs

[Ken Brown]

On 3/30/2012 12:04 PM, Ryan Johnson wrote:
> On 30/03/2012 11:14 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>> On Mar 30 09:43, Ryan Johnson wrote:
>>> On 30/03/2012 9:27 AM, Ken Brown wrote:
>>>> If I type `cygstart mailto:recipient?subject=subject' at a Cygwin
>>>> bash prompt, I expect my default Windows mail program to start an
>>>> outgoing message with `recipient' as recipient and `subject' as
>>>> subject. (This is what happens if I type the same URL into a
>>>> `Start Menu -> Run' box.) What happens instead is that
>>>> `recipient?subject=subject' shows up as the recipient, with the
>>>> question mark replaced by something unprintable, and the subject
>>>> is blank.
>>>>
>>>> Is this a bug in cygstart, or am I misunderstanding something?
>>> I suspect a bug in the way cygwin1.dll handles conversion from unix-
>>> to windows-style paths.
>> http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#IAFNAB
>>
>> http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using-specialnames.html#pathnames-specialchars
>>
> Makes sense... for files, but we're dealing with a URL here, so it *is*
> a bug IMO (but you're right, not a bug in cygwin's handling of
> windows-style paths).
>
> Cygstart knows it's dealing with a URL.

Actually, it doesn't, and that's the problem.  Here's the relevant code 
in cygstart.c:

/* Start a program, or open a file or URL, using Cygwin POSIX paths */
static int
cygStart (const char *aPath, const wchar_t * action,
           const wchar_t * args, const char *workDir,
           int show, StartFlags startFlags)
[...]
   /* Convert file path from POSIX to Windows, unless it looks like a URL */
   if (!strstr (aPath, "://"))

Chuck, what would you think of changing this so that cygstart would 
recognize `mailto:' URLs?  It would also be useful if cygstart could 
learn to handle `file://' URLs involving POSIX paths.

Ken

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Re: cygstart doesn't handle question marks in mailto URLs

[Ryan Johnson]

On 30/03/2012 1:52 PM, Ken Brown wrote:
> On 3/30/2012 12:04 PM, Ryan Johnson wrote:
>> On 30/03/2012 11:14 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>>> On Mar 30 09:43, Ryan Johnson wrote:
>>>> On 30/03/2012 9:27 AM, Ken Brown wrote:
>>>>> If I type `cygstart mailto:recipient?subject=subject' at a Cygwin
>>>>> bash prompt, I expect my default Windows mail program to start an
>>>>> outgoing message with `recipient' as recipient and `subject' as
>>>>> subject. (This is what happens if I type the same URL into a
>>>>> `Start Menu -> Run' box.) What happens instead is that
>>>>> `recipient?subject=subject' shows up as the recipient, with the
>>>>> question mark replaced by something unprintable, and the subject
>>>>> is blank.
>>>>>
>>>>> Is this a bug in cygstart, or am I misunderstanding something?
>>>> I suspect a bug in the way cygwin1.dll handles conversion from unix-
>>>> to windows-style paths.
>>> http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#IAFNAB
>>>
>>> http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using-specialnames.html#pathnames-specialchars 
>>>
>>>
>> Makes sense... for files, but we're dealing with a URL here, so it *is*
>> a bug IMO (but you're right, not a bug in cygwin's handling of
>> windows-style paths).
>>
>> Cygstart knows it's dealing with a URL.
>
> Actually, it doesn't, and that's the problem.  Here's the relevant 
> code in cygstart.c:
>
> /* Start a program, or open a file or URL, using Cygwin POSIX paths */
> static int
> cygStart (const char *aPath, const wchar_t * action,
>           const wchar_t * args, const char *workDir,
>           int show, StartFlags startFlags)
> [...]
>   /* Convert file path from POSIX to Windows, unless it looks like a 
> URL */
>   if (!strstr (aPath, "://"))
>
> Chuck, what would you think of changing this so that cygstart would 
> recognize `mailto:' URLs?  It would also be useful if cygstart could 
> learn to handle `file://' URLs involving POSIX paths.
Interesting... I expected it was doing strchr(aPath, ':') to detect URLS.

Given that ':' "special" for both Windows paths and URLS, why not just 
call strchr(aPath, ':') ? Then we'd catch ftp, **http, mailto, etc. all 
in one fell swoop. Whether to make "file:" (or "file://") a special case 
is technically orthogonal (but probably a good idea).

**BTW, it turns out that Windows and Firefox both do the right thing 
with `http:www.cygwin.com'

Ryan


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Re: cygstart doesn't handle question marks in mailto URLs

[Ken Brown]

On 3/30/2012 1:52 PM, Ken Brown wrote:
> On 3/30/2012 12:04 PM, Ryan Johnson wrote:
>> On 30/03/2012 11:14 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>>> On Mar 30 09:43, Ryan Johnson wrote:
>>>> On 30/03/2012 9:27 AM, Ken Brown wrote:
>>>>> If I type `cygstart mailto:recipient?subject=subject' at a Cygwin
>>>>> bash prompt, I expect my default Windows mail program to start an
>>>>> outgoing message with `recipient' as recipient and `subject' as
>>>>> subject. (This is what happens if I type the same URL into a
>>>>> `Start Menu -> Run' box.) What happens instead is that
>>>>> `recipient?subject=subject' shows up as the recipient, with the
>>>>> question mark replaced by something unprintable, and the subject
>>>>> is blank.
>>>>>
>>>>> Is this a bug in cygstart, or am I misunderstanding something?
>>>> I suspect a bug in the way cygwin1.dll handles conversion from unix-
>>>> to windows-style paths.
>>> http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#IAFNAB
>>>
>>> http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using-specialnames.html#pathnames-specialchars
>>>
>>>
>> Makes sense... for files, but we're dealing with a URL here, so it *is*
>> a bug IMO (but you're right, not a bug in cygwin's handling of
>> windows-style paths).
>>
>> Cygstart knows it's dealing with a URL.
>
> Actually, it doesn't, and that's the problem. Here's the relevant code
> in cygstart.c:
>
> /* Start a program, or open a file or URL, using Cygwin POSIX paths */
> static int
> cygStart (const char *aPath, const wchar_t * action,
> const wchar_t * args, const char *workDir,
> int show, StartFlags startFlags)
> [...]
> /* Convert file path from POSIX to Windows, unless it looks like a URL */
> if (!strstr (aPath, "://"))
>
> Chuck, what would you think of changing this so that cygstart would
> recognize `mailto:' URLs? It would also be useful if cygstart could
> learn to handle `file://' URLs involving POSIX paths.

We can probably end this thread now.  Yaakov has already sent a patch to 
cygwin-apps that does both of these things:

   http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-apps/2012-03/msg00246.html

Ken

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Re: cygstart doesn't handle question marks in mailto URLs

[Charles Wilson]

On 3/30/2012 1:52 PM, Ken Brown wrote:
> Chuck, what would you think of changing this so that cygstart would
> recognize `mailto:' URLs? It would also be useful if cygstart could
> learn to handle `file://' URLs involving POSIX paths.

As always, PTC...

--
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Re: cygstart doesn't handle question marks in mailto URLs

[Ken Brown]

On 3/31/2012 12:39 PM, Charles Wilson wrote:
> On 3/30/2012 1:52 PM, Ken Brown wrote:
>> Chuck, what would you think of changing this so that cygstart would
>> recognize `mailto:' URLs? It would also be useful if cygstart could
>> learn to handle `file://' URLs involving POSIX paths.
>
> As always, PTC...

http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-apps/2012-03/msg00246.html


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RE: cygstart doesn't handle question marks in mailto URLs

[Buchbinder, Barry (NIH/NIAID) [E]]

Ken Brown sent the following at Friday, March 30, 2012 9:28 AM
>If I type `cygstart mailto:recipient?subject=subject' at a Cygwin bash
>prompt, I expect my default Windows mail program to start an outgoing
>message with `recipient' as recipient and `subject' as subject. (This is
>what happens if I type the same URL into a `Start Menu -> Run' box.) the
>  What happens instead is that `recipient?subject=subject' shows up as
>recipient, with the question mark replaced by something unprintable, and
>the subject is blank.
>
>Is this a bug in cygstart, or am I misunderstanding something?
>
>My reason for asking this is that I'm testing xdg-utils, which is
>currently available in Cygwin Ports but which will probably be added to
>the Cygwin distro at some point. I would like xdg-open to be able to
>handle mailto URLs correctly if I export BROWSER=cygstart.

Using "&" instead of "?" does what you want with both cygstart and Windows'
"run".  Remember to escape the "&" when using cygstart.

- Barry
  Disclaimer: Statements made herein are not made on behalf of NIAID.



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RE: cygstart doesn't handle question marks in mailto URLs

[Buchbinder, Barry (NIH/NIAID) [E]]

Barry Buchbinder sent the following at Friday, March 30, 2012 10:23 AM
>Ken Brown sent the following at Friday, March 30, 2012 9:28 AM
>>If I type `cygstart mailto:recipient?subject=subject' at a Cygwin bash
>>prompt, I expect my default Windows mail program to start an outgoing
>>message with `recipient' as recipient and `subject' as subject. (This is
>>what happens if I type the same URL into a `Start Menu -> Run' box.) the
>>  What happens instead is that `recipient?subject=subject' shows up as
>>recipient, with the question mark replaced by something unprintable, and
>>the subject is blank.
>>
>>Is this a bug in cygstart, or am I misunderstanding something?
>>
>>My reason for asking this is that I'm testing xdg-utils, which is
>>currently available in Cygwin Ports but which will probably be added to
>>the Cygwin distro at some point. I would like xdg-open to be able to
>>handle mailto URLs correctly if I export BROWSER=cygstart.
>
>Using "&" instead of "?" does what you want with both cygstart and
>Windows' "run".  Remember to escape the "&" when using cygstart.

Sorry for an incomplete post:  With Outlook 2010 on W7.  YMMV.

Hope that helps,

- Barry
  Disclaimer: Statements made herein are not made on behalf of NIAID.


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RE: cygstart doesn't handle question marks in mailto URLs

[Nellis, Kenneth]

From: Ken Brown 
> If I type `cygstart mailto:recipient?subject=subject' at a Cygwin bash

> prompt, I expect my default Windows mail program to start an outgoing
> message with `recipient' as recipient and `subject' as subject.  (This

> is what happens if I type the same URL into a `Start Menu -> Run'
box.) 
>   What happens instead is that `recipient?subject=subject' shows up as

> the recipient, with the question mark replaced by something
unprintable, 
> and the subject is blank.

FWIW, WJFFM  --Ken Nellis


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