After setting terminal to MSYS2, standard build tasks fail

[TimMensch]

I want to use MSYS2 as my terminal, and setting it up as follows seems to work fine in the terminal window:

    "terminal.integrated.shell.windows": "C:\\devel\\msys64\\usr\\bin\\bash.exe",
    "terminal.integrated.shellArgs.windows": ["--login", "-i"],

But after that's enabled, I can't run my (gulp-based) build task. Here's what the output looks like:

> Executing task: node_modules\.bin\gulp.cmd serve <

bash: node_modules.bingulp.cmd: command not found
The terminal process terminated with exit code: 127

Terminal will be reused by tasks, press any key to close it.

The backslashes are "eaten" as character escapes by the bash command line. If I run the same command from a bash command line but with forward slashes, it works fine. So the bug is that VS Code uses backslashes on Windows.

Which aren't actually necessary on Windows: A forward slash is a reasonable substitute 99% of the time, and in this particular case works fine with PowerShell:

PS D:\projects\someProject> ./node_modules/.bin/gulp.cmd
[14:58:51] Using gulpfile D:\projects\someProject\gulpfile.js
[14:58:51] Starting 'lint'...
[14:58:51] Starting 'host-js'...
[14:58:51] Starting 'host-rx-assets'...
[14:58:51] Starting 'host-midi-assets'...
[14:58:51] Starting 'vendor-js'...
...

As such I would recommend replacing all backslashes with forward slashes on Windows. If you can't do that, then at least swapping them when the terminal is set to any string that includes the word "bash" would work. A third option would be to have a setting that chooses whether to use forward slashes, which would at least enable a workaround. Currently my only workaround is "don't use MSYS2", which means I effectively don't get a terminal window I can use in VS Code because I use MSYS2 for my environment and have no desire to use cmd or PowerShell.

• VSCode Version: Code 1.18.1 (929bacb, 2017-11-16T18:32:36.023Z)
• OS Version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.15063
• Extensions:

Extension	Author (truncated)	Version
yaml	ada	0.0.9
swagger-viewer	Arj	1.5.0
yaml-key-viewer	cyb	0.1.0
vscode-eslint	dba	1.4.3
wrap	dt	0.0.1
EditorConfig	Edi	0.11.1
tslint	eg2	1.0.24
JSDocTagComplete	Hoo	0.0.2
relativepathrefactor	jak	0.9.0
docthis	joe	0.6.0
theme-dark-plus-contrast	k3a	0.1.101
Go	luk	0.6.70
vscode-csscomb	mrm	5.2.1
vscode-scss	mrm	0.6.2
debugger-for-chrome	msj	4.0.0
twospacefourspace	Ohm	0.2.1
pzformat	pan	1.0.3
vscode-docker	Pet	0.0.22
remote-vscode	raf	1.1.0
typescript-hero	rbb	1.8.0
vscode-sort-json	ric	1.10.2
sass-indented	rob	1.4.6
code-settings-sync	Sha	2.8.7
vscode-multiclip	sle	0.1.3
code-spell-checker	str	1.6.2
json2yaml	tux	0.2.0
es-quotes	vil	0.2.6
markdown-all-in-one	yzh	0.11.2

---

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Install MSYS2 64 bit from http://www.msys2.org/ (on a Windows host, of course)
2. Add these settings with paths adjusted to the install location of MSYS2:

    "terminal.integrated.shell.windows": "C:\\devel\\msys64\\usr\\bin\\bash.exe",
    "terminal.integrated.shellArgs.windows": ["--login", "-i"],

3. Open VS Code in a folder that includes a gulp task.
4. Execute the gulp build task. (Using "Run Build Task" if that's configured to a gulp build task, or "Run Task" and select a gulp task)

Reproduces without extensions: Yes

[robertmain]

I had a similar problem in #35593 discussed with @dbaeumer - it looks this may be related?

[TimMensch]

@robertmain Yes, looks like the same underlying root cause: The mistaken use of backslashes in all Windows paths, when Windows doesn't require them, and they fail in bash.

[robertmain]

How do you mean mistaken ? Surely you need some kind of path separator? Should I/we be using forward slashes instead?

[TimMensch]

@robertmain Forward slash works fine 99% of the time on Windows; it specifically works in cmd and PowerShell, as I demonstrated above. (Caveat: If you're using cmd interactively, using a forward slash will break tab completion; using PowerShell it will replace your forward slash with a backslash.) The one place it tends to fail is if you give a path that starts with / to a cmd intrinsic like cd:

> cd /Devel
The system cannot find the path specified.

This fails because cmd intrinsics use / to specify command line options. However, cd c:/devel works fine, and even cd /Devel works in PowerShell.

These backslashes are being generated by VS Code, and then passed into a bash shell, which is broken.

VS Code needs to either use only forward slashes when it passes data to a shell, or it needs a (better?) way to detect bash as the shell. I did just theorize in the other bug that VS Code might be looking at the complete path of the terminal program instead of looking for the characters "bash" or "bash.exe" to enable forward slashes and POSIX paths. @dbaeumer says that it works for him, so either there's some bash setting he has that we don't, or VS Code is detecting that he's running bash and is failing to detect that we are.

[robertmain]

These backslashes are being generated by VS Code, and then passed into a bash shell, which is broken.

Right, but even in my command I'm putting them in...and then code is stripping them out somehow..unless I've mis-understood something

[TimMensch]

@robertmain No, you're not putting them in. It's running some\path\to\tsc.cmd, which path is generated by VS Code with single backslashes in Windows style.

The path you're adding is the one to the bash executable, and that one works, or it wouldn't be running bash to begin with. It's bash that sees the backslashes in the tsc path as escapes and deletes them.

[robertmain]

ohhhhh Im with you now

[vscodebot]

Thanks for creating this issue! We figured it's covering the same as another one we already have. Thus, we closed this one as a duplicate. You can search for existing issues here. See also our issue reporting guidelines.

Happy Coding!

[Tyriar]

#35593