How can I run a !<cmd> from a vim script when the path has a space in it on Windows?

Question

I'm attempting to use the :!<cmd> format in vim to execute an external command and put the results in the buffer. If I type :!, path completion is possible and I can complete the path right up to the command I want to execute. This automatically escapes spaces like so:

:!c:\Program\ Files\ (x86)\Microsoft\ Visual\ Studio\ 9.0\Common7\IDE\TF.exe

When I hit enter, I get:

'c:\Program\' is not recognized as an internal or external command

Which I suspect means that vim has not escaped the spaces properly when passing the command to cmd.exe. I've tried all sorts of escaping combinations to make this work but to no avail. The only way I've found to do this is to work out what the DOS8.3 filename is and use that instead of the long path name. However, I don't like this approach since it's going to make my script less portable. Does anyone know if this can be done, or is it a bug in vim?

Answer 1

If you have quoted arguments, not just the exe path, then you may need to do some fancy quoting, like below. The main problem is not the exe path itself, but the arguments. I found this webpage helpful for similar problems myself: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/twistylittlepassagesallalike/archive/2011/04/23/everyone-quotes-arguments-the-wrong-way.aspx

Not sure offhand and don't have time to check, but if you have a quoted argument then sample below may be closer to what you need:

silent! exe 'r!"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\TF.exe" history /followbranches \^"#\^"' 

Also, I wonder whether the quotes around the path may need special treatment since they are around only a portion of the full command. In any case, the quotes \^" work for main quotes in command line and ^" for quotes embedded in other quotes. I have in the past found it useful to experiment with the command at a windows prompt, remembering to test it with the way Vim prepares it, which is with your command prepended by c:\windows\sys32\cmd.exe .

On second thought, I think when I was working with similar problem I never did get to point of solving command with both quoted arguments and quoted exe-path-with-spaces in same command. I expect there's way to do it, but I instead just created a soft link to the exe in path with no spaces. E.g.:

 mklink c:\users\myname\myexe c:\program files(x86)\myapp\myexe.exe

After having done that there's no need to quote the exe command itself and quoting the argument with \^" worked fine. I am of course curious about how to quote an exe-with-spaces that also has quoted arguments.

EDIT: I think I found way around my problem with quoting, don't have VS to test with your exact command but here's what I think may work from command line:

cmd /k ""C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\TF.exe" history /followbranches ^"#^""

If that works for you from command line then I think only issue is getting Vim to include the /k switch. (Also, there could be issue with Windows command line "throwing away" the /followbranch switch, because of the forward slash, but maybe not.)

EDIT2: I think the trick for doing it from Vim is just to include the 'cmd /k' as part of the command you're running. You end up with several levels of shells opening, but I don't think that's a problem. For an example, here's on that runs from Vim, with (1) spaces in exe path, (2) quoted argument (the (message .. ) ) and even (3) a quote within a quoted argument (\^"hi\^"). This command opens an Emacs instance and has Emacs print message "hi":

!cmd /k ""c:\program files (x86)\emacs\emacs\bin\emacs.exe" --eval ^"(message \^"hi\^")^""

And yet one more EDIT: Including your own 'cmd /k' does create problems, I think, if you're trying not just to execute the external command, but to read its output back into the Vim buffer. In that case you could redirect the output to a file in the user's home directory and the use :read to insert into the buffer. If there's some way to get Vim's own cmd to use k switch then this would be unnecessary, but if not then at least this provides good workaround.

Answer 2

Enclose the full pathname of the executable in double quotation marks. Do not escape spaces in the pathname.

In your example, some of the backslashes were added to escape spaces, and others are a part of the pathname. You did not provide the original pathname, but I can guess at it. If I guessed right, the command that will work is:

:!"c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\TF.exe"

This works equally well in a script. The equivalent script command is:

silent execute '!"c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\TF.exe"'

I have tested this in Vim 7.3.346 x86, installed on Windows 7 Pro SP1 x64.