From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 23243 invoked by alias); 9 Sep 2009 15:27:31 -0000 Received: (qmail 23198 invoked by uid 22791); 9 Sep 2009 15:27:27 -0000 X-SWARE-Spam-Status: No, hits=0.1 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from web30205.mail.mud.yahoo.com (HELO web30205.mail.mud.yahoo.com) (209.191.69.52) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.43rc1) with SMTP; Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:27:23 +0000 Received: (qmail 94073 invoked by uid 60001); 9 Sep 2009 15:27:21 -0000 Message-ID: <796377.93249.qm@web30205.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Received: from [146.6.200.93] by web30205.mail.mud.yahoo.com via HTTP; Wed, 09 Sep 2009 08:27:21 PDT Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:27:00 -0000 From: "Ziser, Jesse" Subject: Re: syntax for Cygwin bash invoking Win apps To: cygwin@cygwin.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help@cygwin.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: cygwin-owner@cygwin.com Mail-Followup-To: cygwin@cygwin.com X-SW-Source: 2009-09/txt/msg00200.txt.bz2 >On 09/08/2009 11:30 PM, Ziser, Jesse wrote: >> Hello list, >> >> When I type a command in bash to invoke a Windows application (like >> cmd.exe, for example), I can't seem to find a pattern in the Windows command >> line that actually gets executed. Ordinary bash syntax does not seem to >> apply in general when the command is a Windows app, but rather, sometimes >> special characters are interpreted in a bash-like way, and sometimes not. >> So, I'm wondering what determines whether a quote mark or something gets >> interpreted or passed on. >> >> Here are some examples: >> >> $ cmd /c echo "/?" >> Displays messages, or turns command-echoing on or off. >> >> ECHO [ON | OFF] >> ECHO [message] >> >> Type ECHO without parameters to display the current echo setting. >> >> # OK, so I'm getting the Windows echo, not the bash echo. Good. >> # Moving on... >> $ cmd /c echo abc >> abc >> >> $ cmd /c echo "abc" >> abc >> >> $ cmd /c echo "\"abc\"" >> "\"abc\"" >> >> # Wahhh?! >> >> Anyone who knows the explanation would make me very grateful. I've tried >> this with other Windows apps too, and the same weirdness seems to occur. > >All of the above is consistent with bash shell quoting. It's the shell that >does the interpreting in the Unix/Linux world and that's what you're seeing here. Huh? Last time I checked, bash translates "\"abc\"" to "abc". >> On a related note, I've noticed what appears to be an automatic sort of >half-bash invocation (but not quite?) or something when I run Cygwin >commands from cmd.exe. For example, > >>> c:\cygwin\bin\echo hi >> hi >> >>> c:\cygwin\bin\echo "hi" >> hi >> >>> c:\cygwin\bin\echo "\"hi\"" >> "hi" >> >>> c:\cygwin\bin\echo * >> myfile myotherfile yetanotherfile ... >> >> And yet... >> >>> c:\cygwin\bin\echo $PATH >> $PATH >> >> What the heck is going on? Are there any rules here at all? Sorry if I'm >> missing something dumb. And sorry for apologizing for it. And...... > >In this case, the Cygwin DLL intercedes and handles quoting for the Cygwin >app that >you invoked (echo). But it only does quoting. You're mixing the notion of >quoting with >environment handling. They are two different things. Does "handles quoting" mean that it implements the "Quoting" section, and only that section, of the bash manpage? I just need to know exactly what it does. It clearly does not *only* do quoting. That's why I demonstrated the asterisk example. It is doing at least wildcard expansion in addition to quoting. What else is it doing? I'm trying to figure this out so I know how to properly escape or quote a general command in order to execute it from a Windows application without any unexpected changes. Thanks for the response, Jesse -- Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/ Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple