escaping paths on windows

[maxogden]

when I run this on windows:

var spawn = require('execspawn')
spawn(process.execPath + ' -v')

I get this on stderr:

'C:\Program' is not recognized as an internal or external command.

but if I wrap the execPath in quotes, like this:

spawn('"' + process.execPath + '" -v')

then it works.

In the interest of making portable code easier to write, is this something that execspawn should/could try and handle for me or is it outside of scope?

[AndreasMadsen]

Interresting question. I will say it is outside the scope for the following reasons:

It is not a portability issue:

This will also be an issue on unix like systems. Consider the following setup:

/
|- a b/
   |- b -- #!/bin/sh \n echo "b file"

• Executing /a b/b -v will fail
• Executing "/a b/b" -v will output b file

The new behaviour would be difficult to reason about:

Consider the following setup:

/
|- a -- #!/bin/sh \n echo "a file"
|- a b/
   |- b -- #!/bin/sh \n echo "b file"

• Executing /a b/b -v will output a file
• Executing "/a b/b" -v will output b file

What should the new expected behaviour be in this case and how can one get the other result?

The behaviour would differ from require('child_process').exec:

https://github.com/joyent/node/blob/master/lib/child_process.js#L618-L619

[AndreasMadsen]

Interresting question. I will say it is outside the scope for the following reasons:

It is not a portability issue:

This will also be an issue on unix like systems. Consider the following setup:

/
|- a b/
   |- b -- #!/bin/sh \n echo "b file"

• Executing /a b/b -v will fail
• Executing "/a b/b" -v will output b file

The new behaviour would be difficult to reason about:

Consider the following setup:

/
|- a -- #!/bin/sh \n echo "a file"
|- a b/
   |- b -- #!/bin/sh \n echo "b file"

• Executing /a b/b -v will output a file
• Executing "/a b/b" -v will output b file

What should the new expected behaviour be in this case and how can one get the other result?

The behaviour would differ from require('child_process').exec:

https://github.com/joyent/node/blob/master/lib/child_process.js#L618-L619