RE: Re: need help with bash -c <command> with cygpath

["Phil Betts" <Phil dot Betts at ascribe dot com>]

Jay wrote on Friday, January 11, 2008 3:14 PM::

>> That's still somewhat wasteful, starting bash just to get a vim
>> alias - why not use the full name gvim, and bypass the bash process
>> to begin with? 
> 
> you right, i'm going to remove it, thanks.
> 
> My main problem now is that for some reason the leading backslash on
> UNC names is getting dropped when calling bash -c from the windows
> command prompt, even when using just single quotes.  So if you run
> this from a windows command prompt: 
> 
> H:\>C:\cygwin\bin\bash -v -c '\\UNC_PATH\Dir'
> \UNC_PATH\Dir   <--Leading backslash dropped
> /usr/bin/bash: UNC_PATHDir: command not found
> 
> It drops off the leading backslash.
> 
> When you run it from Cygwin bash:
>> bash -v -c '\\UNC_PATH\Dir'
> \\UNC_PATH\Dir       <--The leading backslash is preserved.
> bash: \UNC_PATHDir: command not found
> 
> I know i can make it work by piping the path into sed, but I'm just
> wondering why i'm losing the leading backslash when running from
> windows. 
> 
> Maybe dos is passing in the single quotes as double quotes.
> 

"dos" (i.e. cmd.exe) does not have the same quoting rules as bash,
so \\ inside single quotes means the same as it does inside double
quotes in bash.

Why are you even trying to use backslashes?  There's no need (even
in cmd.exe), but there's certainly no point in using them in a posix
command.  Just replace all backslashes with forward slashes and you've
sidestepped the problem.

If you absolutely MUST have backslashes, from cmd.exe, you need to 
double each backslash:

H:\>C:\cygwin\bin\bash -v -c '\\\\UNC_PATH\\Dir'

(actually only the first really needs to be doubled, because \ has
no special meaning if it's followed by a letter)

Phil

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