Feature #16741: Implement Shellwords.shellescape correctly for Windows

• Status: Open
• Priority: Normal
• Assignee: -
• Target version: -

[abobrikovich (Alexander Bobrikovich)]

shellwords module was originally designed and developed for *NIX, and currently works like this:

require 'shellwords'

Shellwords.shellescape("/home/me/test with space.txt")
# => "/home/me/test\\ with\\ space.txt"

Shellwords.shellescape("C:\Program Files")
# => "C:Program\\ Files"

I think it's a good opportunity to extend it to support Windows. According to [2], it looks like using quotations is the only option for paths used in a batch script that have space inside. I propose:

Shellwords.shellescape("C:\Program Files")
# => "\"C:\Program Files\""

Links

1. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/naming-a-file
2. https://superuser.com/a/962816/245944
3. https://ss64.com/nt/syntax-esc.html

[znz (Kazuhiro NISHIYAMA)]

I think adding Shellwords.cmdescape is better than changing Shellwords.shellescape.

Some environments on Windows support both bash and cmd.

[mame (Yusuke Endoh)]

I agree with znz (Kazuhiro NISHIYAMA). IMO, a gem named cmdwords or something would be a good start for the feature instead of directly extending shellwords.

[sawa (Tsuyoshi Sawada)]

• Description updated (diff)
• Subject changed from Implement Shellwords.shellescape correctly on Windows to Implement Shellwords.shellescape correctly for Windows

[nobu (Nobuyoshi Nakada)]

I'm curious for what purpose you need to escape paths.
To pass it to another program, it is better to spawn or system with split array.