venv: activate.bat fails for venv with parentheses in PATH

[BWenzel]

BPO	36634
Nosy	@pfmoore, @tjguk, @zware, @eryksun, @zooba, @miss-islington
PRs	bpo-36634: Fixes activate.bat when existing values contain double quotes #15924 [3.8] bpo-36634: Fixes activate.bat when existing values contain double quotes (GH-15924) #15968 [3.7] bpo-36634: Fixes activate.bat when existing values contain double quotes (GH-15924) #15969
Files	activate.bat: avtivate.bat as created by venv Report.patch

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = 'https://github.com/zooba'
closed_at = <Date 2019-09-11.15:00:33.935>
created_at = <Date 2019-04-15.14:15:59.571>
labels = ['type-bug', '3.8', '3.9', '3.7', 'library', 'OS-windows']
title = 'venv: activate.bat fails for venv with parentheses in PATH'
updated_at = <Date 2019-09-11.15:23:10.364>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/BWenzel'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2019-09-11.15:23:10.364>
actor = 'miss-islington'
assignee = 'steve.dower'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2019-09-11.15:00:33.935>
closer = 'steve.dower'
components = ['Library (Lib)', 'Windows']
creation = <Date 2019-04-15.14:15:59.571>
creator = 'BWenzel'
dependencies = []
files = ['48267', '48268']
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 36634
keywords = ['patch']
message_count = 10.0
messages = ['340274', '340294', '340313', '340316', '340320', '340321', '340351', '351911', '351937', '351938']
nosy_count = 7.0
nosy_names = ['paul.moore', 'tim.golden', 'zach.ware', 'eryksun', 'steve.dower', 'miss-islington', 'BWenzel']
pr_nums = ['15924', '15968', '15969']
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'fixed'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = 'behavior'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue36634'
versions = ['Python 3.7', 'Python 3.8', 'Python 3.9']

[BWenzel]

After creating a virtual environment on win 7 (64bit) with:
py -3.7 -m venv venv

Running venv\Scripts\activate.bat will yield this result:
\Common was unexpected at this time.
(venv) C:\...

My PATH variable contains a path that starts with:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\...

To me this looks like this issue for virtualenv:
pypa/virtualenv#35
pypa/virtualenv#839

Running:
(venv) C:\Tools\venv_test>where python
C:\Python34\python.exe

This is my default python on PATH. Doing this with virtualenv:
(virtualenv) C:\Tools\venv_test>where python
C:\Tools\venv_test\virtualenv\Scripts\python.exe
C:\Python34\python.exe

I really hope this is not a duplicate.

[zooba]

Basically everyone has that directory in their PATH - we'd be hearing a lot more issues if it were a consistent bug.

Can you share the full contents of your activate.bat file? And if it's okay, your full PATH variable (before and after running activate.bat)

(You may not want to share PATH if there are applications in there that you don't want to be seen publicly - in that case, can you randomize letters rather than deleting them? e.g. "System32"->"Xborpm99" That way we won't lose potentially important information to this bug like punctuation.)

[BWenzel]

I have attached the activate.bat script that got generated by venv.

My current path looks like this (added line breaks for readability):

C:\Program Files\Git\bin;
C:\Tools\antlr;
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Oracle\Java\javapath;
C:\ProgramData\Oracle\Java\javapath;
C:\windows\system32;
C:\windows;
C:\windows\System32\Wbem;
C:\windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;
C:\Program Files (x86)\CheckPoint\Endpoint Security\Endpoint Common\bin;
C:\Program Files\IBM\Informix\Client-SDK;
C:\Program Files\IBM\Informix\Client-SDK\bin\netf20;
C:\Python34\;
C:\Python34\Scripts;
C:\Dwimperl\perl\bin;
C:\Dwimperl\perl\site\bin;
C:\Dwimperl\c\bin;
C:\Program Files\TortoiseSVN\bin;
C:\Program Files\Git LFS;
C:\Users\a0000000\Downloads\chromedriver_win32;
C:\Program Files (x86)\PuTTY\;
C:\Program Files\doxygen\bin;
C:\Strawberry\c\bin;
C:\Strawberry\perl\site\bin;
C:\Strawberry\perl\bin;
C:\Projects\tex\MiKTeX 2.9\miktex\bin\x64\;
C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2017b\runtime\win64;
C:\Program Files\MATLAB\R2017b\bin;
C:\Program Files (x86)\Koenmdpk\AG-WC\Version Selector Plus\;
%AGWCROOT%\bin;
%SSLROOT%;
%IBISUROOT%;
C:\Program Files (x86)\Sennheiser\SoftphoneSDK\;
C:\Program Files\dotnet\;
C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\130\Tools\Binn\;
C:\HashiCorp\Vagrant\bin;
%systemroot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;
C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin;
%systemroot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;
%systemroot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;
C:\Program Files\TortoiseGit\bin

%IBISUROOT%=C:\Program Files (x86)\Koenmdpk\ibisu\
%SSLROOT%=C:\Program Files (x86)\Koenmdpk\SSL\
%AGWCROOT%=C:\Program Files (x86)\Koenmdpk\AG-WC\3.60.30
%systemroot%=C:\windows

[BWenzel]

So if I replace this section from venv's activate.bat:
if defined _OLD_VIRTUAL_PATH (
set "PATH=%_OLD_VIRTUAL_PATH%"
) else (
set "_OLD_VIRTUAL_PATH=%PATH%"
)

with the part from virtualenv's activate.bat:

REM if defined _OLD_VIRTUAL_PATH (
if not defined _OLD_VIRTUAL_PATH goto ENDIFVPATH1
set "PATH=%_OLD_VIRTUAL_PATH%"
:ENDIFVPATH1
REM ) else (
if defined _OLD_VIRTUAL_PATH goto ENDIFVPATH2
set "_OLD_VIRTUAL_PATH=%PATH%"
:ENDIFVPATH2

then venv\Scrtips\activate.bat seems to behave as expected.

[BWenzel]

Ok I think I found my problem. The system path of of my machine is ok but my user path contains a stray double quotation mark (") like this:

C:\Program Files\Git\bin";C:\Tools\antlr;C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Oracle\Java\javapath ...

With this I am closing the double quotation of the .bat file too early and this leads to an early closing ).

If I remove it venv\Script\activate.bat behaves as expected.

Sorry for taking up your time.

[eryksun]

my user path contains a stray double quotation mark (")

Steve, do you think we should work around this by first removing double quote characters from PATH? This will fix the user's PATH, making one or more directories searchable again, but it could have side effects.

[zooba]

We should be able to use alternate characters in the SET call, or just drop the quotes completely. In theory they make sense, but there's no trailing whitespace to worry about here.

[zware]

New changeset 574b324 by Zachary Ware (Steve Dower) in branch 'master':
bpo-36634: Fixes activate.bat when existing values contain double quotes (GH-15924)
574b324

[miss-islington]

New changeset 20f80bf by Miss Islington (bot) in branch '3.8':
bpo-36634: Fixes activate.bat when existing values contain double quotes (GH-15924)
20f80bf

[miss-islington]

New changeset 8a19a91 by Miss Islington (bot) in branch '3.7':
bpo-36634: Fixes activate.bat when existing values contain double quotes (GH-15924)
8a19a91