cmd.exe Command Line Parsing of Environment Variables
- by Artefacto
I can't figure how to have cmd.exe not interpret something like %PATH% as an environment variable.
Given this program:
#include<stdio.h>
#include<windows.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
int i;
printf("cmd line: %s\n", GetCommandLine());
for (i = 0; i < argc; i++) {
printf("%d: %s\n", i, argv[i]);
}
return 0;
}
I have these different outputs according to the position of the arguments:
>args "k\" o" "^%PATH^%"
cmd line: args "k\" o" "%PATH%"
0: args
1: k" o
2: %PATH%
>args "^%PATH^%" "k\" o"
cmd line: args "^%PATH^%" "k\" o"
0: args
1: ^%PATH^%
2: k" o
I guess it's because cmd.exe doesn't recognize the escaped \" and sees the escaped double quote as closing the first, leaving in the first case %PATH% unquoted. I say this, because if I don't quote the argument, it always works:
>args ^%PATH^% "k\" o"
cmd line: args %PATH% "k\" o"
0: args
1: %PATH%
2: k" o
but then I can have no spaces...
