Escaping quotes and double quotes

Question

How do I properly escape the quotes in the -param value in the following command line?

$cmd=\"\\\\server\\toto.exe -batch=B -param=\"sort1;parmt         


        

Answer 1

Escaping parameters like that is usually source of frustration and feels a lot like a time wasted. I see you're on v2 so I would suggest using a technique that Joel "Jaykul" Bennet blogged about a while ago.

Long story short: you just wrap your string with @' ... '@ :

Start-Process \\server\toto.exe @'
-batch=B -param="sort1;parmtxt='Security ID=1234'"
'@

(Mind that I assumed which quotes are needed, and which things you were attempting to escape.) If you want to work with the output, you may want to add the -NoNewWindow switch.

BTW: this was so important issue that since v3 you can use --% to stop the PowerShell parser from doing anything with your parameters:

\\server\toto.exe --% -batch=b -param="sort1;paramtxt='Security ID=1234'"

... should work fine there (with the same assumption).