[OT] Invoking Perl via batchfile: ampersand in PATH [Solved]

[Athanasius]

I run a portable edition of Strawberry Perl (under Windows 8.1) invoked by the batch file portableshell.bat which contains the following line:

set PATH=%drivep%\perl\site\bin;%drivep%\perl\bin;%drivep%\c\bin;%PATH
+%

This has been working well. However, after updating MySQL and installing MySQL Workbench, I now have a directory:

C:\Program Files (x86)\MySQL\MySQL Fabric 1.5 & MySQL Utilities 1.5

which has also been added to the PATH environment variable. Now, when I open a normal Windows command prompt, the PATH is set correctly; but when I run portableshell.bat the ampersand in the directory name is interpreted as a “special character” and the path is truncated.

Google search has led me to the following suggested fixes:

• Escape the ampersand with a caret: \MySQL Fabric 1.5 ^% MySQL Utilities 1.5
• Quote the directory name in the PATH variable
• Quote the assignment in the batch file: set "PATH=...;%PATH%"

I’ve tried these in various permutations, but so far nothing works. :-(

Yes, I could rename the directory, but I’m afraid this will break, e.g., MySQL Notifier.

So, is there an equivalent of quotemeta for Windows batch files? Or another workaround?

Thanks,

[Discipulus]

Hello Athanasius,

apart from my allergy to any non ascii chars in everything in any os, if i remember correctly Strawberry told me something like:"Strawberry Perl cannot be installed in a directory with spaces or non-ASCII characters" and probably the space is worst than ampersand. I personally would prefer to reinstall the program in a normalized path..
Anyway i think you can modify the portableshell.bat to include your malefical path as follow

  set _TEST="c:\path\dir & test"

  set PATH=%_TEST%;%drivep%\perl\site\bin;%drivep%\perl\bin;%drivep%\c
+\bin;%PATH%

then you can use it as you wish, after launching the batch:

c:\strawberry>set
...
Path="c:\ulisse\dir & test";C:\ulisse\strawberry\perl\site\bin;C:\ulis
+se\strawberry\perl\bin;

...

_TEST="c:\path\dir & test"



c:\strawberry>cd %_TEST%

c:\path\dir & test>perl -e "print $ENV{PATH}"
c:\path\dir & test;C:\strawberry\perl\site\bin;C:\strawberry\perl\bin;
+C:\strawberry\c\bin; .....

UPDATE: ahh.. you can also use junction (from sysinternals) as mentioned in the thread Installing CPAN on a Windows system or native command to achieve the same result: see here

HtH

L*

[Athanasius]

Hello Discipulus,

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, it doesn’t help. :-( Adding %_TEST% in this way does succeed in getting the full directory name into the PATH variable; but the later %PATH% in the assignment still chokes on the ampersand, as before.

However, adding double quotes around the assignment does work, after all:

set "PATH=%drivep%\perl\site\bin;%drivep%\perl\bin;%drivep%\c\bin;%PAT
+H%"

(I made a mistake when testing.)

Junction looks interesting. I’ll have to look into it.

Thanks,

[Anonymous Monk]

So, is there an equivalent of quotemeta for Windows batch files? Or another workaround?

make a hard link with a shorter name without spaces and amperstands

or do the best and most closest approximation of quotemeta, see this.bat, this2.bat ... & is particularly stupid but doable

this3.bat

Read more... (802 Bytes)

$ "rock&roll\this3.bat"
"D:\rock&roll\this3.bat"
escaped-thisfile "D:\rock^&roll\this3.bat"


$ D:\rock^&roll\this3.bat
"D:\rock&roll\this3.bat"
escaped-thisfile "D:\rock^&roll\this3.bat"

Its triple interpolation, or eval interpolation , or ... whatever, its batguano :P

See also the following, maybe improve to make hard links for &nonsense vienv - Edit local environment variables on Win32, CleanPath , SetEnviron.bat

[Athanasius]

Thanks! Not sure if it’s what you had in mind, but your advice:

make a hard link with a shorter name without spaces and amperstands

gave me the clue I needed: I replaced the directory name with its DOS short name (8.3 format) obtained via dir /x. This is a better solution, as it means I only have to make a single change to the environment variable definition, instead of updating a separate batch file for each Strawberry Perl portable edition.

Thanks again,

[Anonymous Monk]

:) That is good ... might not be a bad idea for https://metacpan.org/source/KMX/Perl-Dist-Strawberry-4.005/share/portable/portableshell.bat to give that a try

set "drive=%~dps0"

help cmd says  %~fsI       - expands %I to a full path name with short names only

[syphilis]

I think you just need to replace (in potableshell.bat's "set PATH=..." line) %PATH% with "%PATH%".

Cheers,
Rob

[Athanasius]

Hello syphilis,

Thanks. Actually putting double quotes around just %PATH% works, but produces a different warning:

'cmd' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

I have no idea why. But putting double quotes around the whole assignment works with no warning! See my reply to Discipulus, above.

Thanks,