Problems with %-sign in filenames/directory names

[BigMike]

Hi,

I got aware of 4nt when reading a page about tips & tricks using the windows command line. After the problem occured with the trial version linked on this page, I came here for an update and found, that 4nt was replaced by tcc (and that there's a free version - thank you :) ).

It seems there's a problem with handling directories and files, if the name contains a %-sign.

Windows standard command interpretor handles these names without problems, but 4nt/tcc doesn't. I can't access directories or files containing a %-sign. Your interpretor tells me, that there's no such file/directory.

Just create a file containing a %-sign via explorer and try to delete it with your command interpretor or create a directory in explorer and try to switch to it via "cd dirname_containing_%" to reproduce the problem.

I tried this with
4nt 8,02.106 trial
tcc le 10,00,63 (on your page it's reported as build 62??)
on Win XP, SP3 32bit.

Thanks so far,
BigMike

 

[vefatica]

On Fri, 27 Mar 2009 06:52:50 -0500, BigMike <> wrote:

|Hi,
|
|I got aware of 4nt when reading a page about tips & tricks using the windows command line. After the problem occured with the trial version linked on this page, I came here for an update and found, that 4nt was replaced by tcc (and that there's a free version - thank you :) ).
|
|It seems there's a problem with handling directories and files, if the name contains a %-sign.

v:\> touch /c t%%.txt
2009-03-27 08:07:28.169 V:\t%.txt

v:\> dir /k /m t*
2009-03-27 08:07 0 t%.txt
2009-03-16 23:47 1,232 test.txt

v:\> del t%%.txt
Deleting V:\t%.txt
1 file deleted
--
- Vince

 

[BigMike]

Thank you :)

Ok, in this case the behaviour is just different. With CMD a single % is enough. In TCC you have to double the %

 

[Jay Sage]

Vince didn't explain this, but it arises from TCC's acceptance of
environment variables with a single percent sign rather than percent
signs before AND AFTER the variable name.

Another approach (useful in many cases where special features might
cause a problem) is to use the SETDOS command with the /X option to turn
off the feature. The command "setdos /x-3" will turn off the processing
of environment variables, making the percent character just another
regular character. When the operations are complete, "setdos /x+3" or
"setdos /x0" will restore normal operation.

-- Jay

 

[Jim Cook]

Re: Problems with %-sign in filenames/directory names

An overkill that would work if you only use commands at the command
line, but did not use batch files, would be

SETDOS /X-3

Then the % character is no longer special. This has drastic
implications for all batch files, however.

On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 6:04 AM, BigMike <> wrote:

> Thank you :)
>
> Ok, in this case the behaviour is just different. With CMD a single % is enough. In TCC you have to double the %
>
>
>
>
>

--
Jim Cook
2009 Saturdays: 4/4, 6/6, 8/8, 10/10, 12/12 and 5/9, 9/5, 7/11, 11/7.
Next year they're Sunday.

 

[BigMike]

Many thanks again, I'll get used to this behaviour and with the explanation, why the behaviour is as it is all questions are more than answered :)

 

[dim]

On 2009-03-27 14:04, BigMike wrote:

> Ok, in this case the behaviour is just different. With CMD a single % is enough. In TCC you have to double the %

The problem occurs because of the way environment variables are parsed,
which is done differently in CMD and TCC. Let's suppose you set a
variable 'foo':

set foo=bar

and you create a directory using this syntax:

mkdir foo%foo

then the results will be different for CMD and TCC: CMD will create a
directory named 'foo%foo', while TCC creates 'foobar'. This is because
TCC interprets '%foo' as a request to expand the variable 'foo', while
CMD doesn't. It needs an extra % sign at the end, as in '%foo%', to do
the expansion.

E.g. TCC must always have double % signs to escape variable expansion,
while CMD doesn't need to.