How wt.exe process the command line arguments with double quotes?

[lrtfm]

I would like to add an "open with vim in wsl" item for files when right-clicking it. Sometimes, the file path or name would have space, so I must enclose the parameter with double-quotes. After trying many many times, I found the command

wt nt wsl -d Ubuntu-20.04 -e bash --login -c -v "vim \"""$(wslpath 'D:\Source Insight 4.0\test.txt')"""""""

which gives me the correct behavior. As you can see there is a space in the path D:\Source Insight 4.0\test.txt.

I was wondering why I must put \""" in before $( to give a " in the bash command while I should put multiple " after ) to get a ".

Could someone give me an explanation？

The windows terminal version is 1.5.10411.0
The cmd version is

Microsoft Windows [版本 10.0.19042.804]

[lrtfm]

I found some info about this and put them here.

1. CommandLineToArgvW is used to process the command line parameters.

   terminal/src/cascadia/WindowsTerminal/AppHost.cpp

   Line 120 in 83f2a3b

   wil::unique_any<LPWSTR*, decltype(&::LocalFree), ::LocalFree> argv{ CommandLineToArgvW(commandline, &argc) };

2. Parsing C++ command-line arguments

// argument_definitions.cpp
// compile with: /EHsc
#include <iostream>
#include <string.h>

using namespace std;
int main( int argc, char *argv[], char *envp[] )
{
    bool numberLines = false;    // Default is no line numbers.

    // If /n is passed to the .exe, display numbered listing
    // of environment variables.
    if ( (argc == 2) && _stricmp( argv[1], "/n" ) == 0 )
         numberLines = true;

    // Walk through list of strings until a NULL is encountered.
    for ( int i = 0; envp[i] != NULL; ++i )
    {
        if ( numberLines )
            cout << i << ": "; // Prefix with numbers if /n specified
        cout << envp[i] << "\n";
    }
}

3. CommandLineToArgvW function (shellapi.h)

#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <shellapi.h>

int __cdecl main()
{
   LPWSTR *szArglist;
   int nArgs;
   int i;

   szArglist = CommandLineToArgvW(GetCommandLineW(), &nArgs);
   if( NULL == szArglist )
   {
      wprintf(L"CommandLineToArgvW failed\n");
      return 0;
   }
   else for( i=0; i<nArgs; i++) printf("%d: %ws\n", i, szArglist[i]);

// Free memory allocated for CommandLineToArgvW arguments.

   LocalFree(szArglist);

   return(1);
}

The output of the above code for args "vim \"""$(wslpath 'D:\my path\my file.txt')"""""" are

• For code in list 2

C:\> echo_args_c.exe "vim \"""$(wslpath 'D:\my path\my file.txt')""""""

Command-line arguments:
  argv[0]   echo_args_c.exe
  argv[1]   vim ""$(wslpath 'D:\my path\my file.txt')"""

• For code in list 3

C:\Users\CSAR>echo_args.exe "vim \"""$(wslpath 'D:\my path\my file.txt')""""""
0: echo_args.exe
1: vim ""$(wslpath
2: 'D:\my
3: path\my
4: file.txt')""

If you put two backslashes in the command line, the result will also be ok.