----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Loughran" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Ant Users List" <user@ant.apache.org>
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 2:35 PM
Subject: Re: Problems with exec task
[snip]
Does the Ant manual mention that you can handle embedded blanks in a path
with a pair of single quotes? I don't recall ever seeing that mentioned
but the manual isn't searchable so I can't just search for all
occurrences of "embedded blanks" to verify that. Perhaps it is in the
manual somewhere but I just missed it. If that fact isn't in the manual
somewhere, it certainly ought to be, in my opinion. Many many Ant users
stand a good chance of encountering that problem at some point so the
single quote technique really needs to be in the manual.
Well, there is the bit that says
"It is highly recommended to avoid the line version when possible. Ant
will try to split the command line in a way similar to what a (Unix) shell
would do, but may create something that is very different from what you
expect under some circumstances."
If you go
<arg value="${vbs.script}"/>
<arg value="Dudley"/>
<arg value="Doright"/>
you get exactly what you need, no surprises.
Yes, I saw the bit about preferring several args, each with the value
parameter, over one arg with the line parameter but in my various
experiments they both behaved the same in each case. But I'm quite happy to
use arg with value rather than arg with line if that is more likely to
behave in some cases.
But your specific example doesn't work; I just tried it.
When I did this:
<property name="vbs.script" value="'c:\Documents and Settings\Rhino\My
Documents\LaunchWdMacro.vbs'"/>
<exec executable="cscript.exe" spawn="true">
<arg line="${vbs.script} Dudley Doright"/>
</exec>
everything was fine; there were no errors from Ant and the macro wrote
Dudley Doright in the document.
But when I did this (using the same property definition for vbs.script):
<exec executable="cscript.exe" spawn="true">
<arg value="${vbs.script}"/>
<arg value="Bugs"/>
<arg value="Bunny"/>
</exec>
I got no errors from Ant but the macro didn't run and Bugs Bunny was not
added to the document. When I tried the same thing with the spawn="true"
removed, I got an error from Ant:
[exec] Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.6
[exec] Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 1996-2001. All rights reserved.
[exec] Input Error: There is no script engine for file extension ".vbs'".
[exec] Result: 1
Frankly, I'm not sure why these variations don't work but I've got other
problems on my plate and the first variant in this note works fine so I'm
inclined to move on to other things rather than work out exactly why the
variants are failing.
If it _is_ in the manual, could someone tell me where it is? If it
_isn't_ in the manual, what is the appropriate way of asking the Ant
developers to add it to the manual?
You add it to the manual in your local copy, and submit the patch. We
welcome extra details and examples on things like exec
So are you saying that the information about a pair of single quotes around
a path with embedded blanks being helpful is not already in the manual
somewhere? Hmm. I'd fully expected to be told that it was already there
somewhere, probably with a citation describing exactly where, and that I had
simply missed it.
Well, if it's not already there, then I feel it should be added to the
manual. The only thing is, I'm not sure where to put it. I assume that this
is a fairly global gotcha, not something that is only a factor in the exec
task. In that case, I think it needs to be located where users of _any_ task
might hope to find it. What do you think about adding it to the Feedback and
Troubleshooting page? That seems like a fairly logical place to me. There
are already a few general suggestions there of roughly the same nature as
the single-quotes-around-the-path-with-embedded-blanks technique.
If that sounds suitable, I could add another item to the numbered list on
that page, then send the HTML source for that page to the developers list;
is that the best way to proceed?
--
Rhino
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