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Problems with %-sign in filenames/directory names

Mar
3
0
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
 
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
 
Thank you :)

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

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