Use proper slash seperator for windows file paths

[AlexanderEvans]

mpv version and platform

Windows 10

Reproduction steps

Add
ctrl+e run explorer /select, ${path}
to input.conf in windows 10

Expected behavior

On Windows use '\' only as the separator when printing paths so that it can be passed to file explorer to open the explorer with the file selected properly.

Actual behavior

mpv outputs the path using '/'s instead for sub-directories which apparently confuses windows' file explorer.

Alternate reproduction method

This behaviour can be very clearly observed why playing a folder of files in windows with a command such as:
mpv.exe "<path to music folder>/Music videos folder" --shuffle
and adding
ctrl+e show-text ${path}
to input.conf

Then just press ctrl+e and observe the mixed \ and /

This was discussed more in this thread if it is unclear: #6560

[avih]

mpv outputs the path using '/'s instead for sub-directories which apparently confuses windows' file explorer.

No, it outputs exactly the value you used when running mpv .

If you want paths to contain only \, call mpv with paths with only \, or write a script to normalize the path either on load or when you invoke explorer.

edit: mpv does seem to use / to append items when creating a playlist from a directory. Not sure it should normalize the path because it works for mpv needs, but some external programs (explorer) could be more picky. But a script can still trivially do it for you.

[AlexanderEvans]

mpv outputs the path using '/'s instead for sub-directories which apparently confuses windows' file explorer.

No, it outputs exactly the value you used when running mpv .

If you want paths to contain only \, call mpv with paths with only \, or write a script to normalize the path either on load or when you invoke explorer.

edit: mpv does seem to use / to append items when creating a playlist from a directory. Not sure it should normalize the path because it works for mpv needs, but some external programs (explorer) could be more picky. But a script can still trivially do it for you.

Can you point me to some documentation to how I can hook into mpv with a script to do that? I really don't understand much of anything about how input.conf works or what it is, and explorer doesn't seem to like the way mpv spits out the path by default...

[avih]

The manual has sections about scripting in lua/js.

This should work also for directory playlist items: save this text as show-in-explorer.js at your scripts/ folder:

mp.register_script_message("show-in-explorer", function(path) {
    mp.commandv("run", "explorer", "/select,", (path || ".").replace(/\//g, "\\"));
});

Then in your input.conf add:

ctrl+e script-message show-in-explorer ${path}

[AlexanderEvans]

The manual has sections about scripting in lua/js.

This should work also for directory playlist items: save this text as show-in-explorer.js at your scripts/ folder:

mp.register_script_message("show-in-explorer", function(path) {
    mp.commandv("run", "explorer", "/select,", (path || ".").replace(/\//g, "\\"));
});

Then in your input.conf add:

ctrl+e script-message show-in-explorer ${path}

Ty, this works exactly as I needed. I had no idea that mpv could be extended like this. I will keep this in mind going forward. Still might want to consider changing how mpv appends slashes to paths in windows, but this is good enough for me. Ty again. 😄

[zc62]

See #6570

[Akemi]

since the PR was closed this idea is off the table.

[CogentRedTester]

You can also do this entirely from within input.conf using powershell:

ctrl+e run powershell.exe -command ``explorer.exe '/select,' ( "${path}" -replace '/', '\' )``

Note that this example is using the custom quote syntax with the backtick ` character.

Edit: updated to use two backticks instead of `!

[stax76]

I use forward slashes only for my personal usage, in my public user scripts and mpv.net I don't generate forward and double slashes to ensure the highest possible compatibility with other user scripts. In mpv.net, I normalize paths in some locations to ensure compatibility with some user scripts that generate forward slashes, such as mpv-file-browser @CogentRedTester, and also mpv generating a playlist from a directory. There are other opinions, that's how I do it.

[stax76]

@CogentRedTester

Powershell is a bit slow, in most use cases fast enough, to be exact the startup is 200 ms when it was started before, for pwsh it's 400 ms. I try your solution and use it if it works.

[CogentRedTester]

@CogentRedTester

Powershell is a bit slow, in most use cases fast enough, to be exact the startup is 200 ms when it was started before, for pwsh it's 400 ms. I try your solution and use it if it works.

Oh yea it's very slow compared to cmd or bash, but if you're just trying to open explorer.exe then I doubt even a 1 second delay matters much.

[stax76]

I confirm that it works perfectly, and the delay is no problem for this use case.

[stax76]

@CogentRedTester

I'm not understanding the exclamation marks in the command line, what do I have to google to find the documentation for it?

[CogentRedTester]

@CogentRedTester

I'm not understanding the exclamation marks in the command line, what do I have to google to find the documentation for it?

flat-command-syntax, the 5th paragraph on custom quotes. I should probably change the example to use two backticks instead of `! though, I didn't know that two backticks were valid.

[stax76]

Thanks!