Backslash and quote in command-line arguments

Question

Is the following behaviour some feature or a bug in C# .NET?

Test application:

using System;
using System.Linq;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
             


        

Answer 1

This works for me, and it works correctly with the example in the question.

    /// 

    /// https://www.pinvoke.net/default.aspx/shell32/CommandLineToArgvW.html
    /// 
    /// 
    /// 
    static string[] SplitArgs(string unsplitArgumentLine)
    {
        int numberOfArgs;
        IntPtr ptrToSplitArgs;
        string[] splitArgs;

        ptrToSplitArgs = CommandLineToArgvW(unsplitArgumentLine, out numberOfArgs);

        // CommandLineToArgvW returns NULL upon failure.
        if (ptrToSplitArgs == IntPtr.Zero)
            throw new ArgumentException("Unable to split argument.", new Win32Exception());

        // Make sure the memory ptrToSplitArgs to is freed, even upon failure.
        try
        {
            splitArgs = new string[numberOfArgs];

            // ptrToSplitArgs is an array of pointers to null terminated Unicode strings.
            // Copy each of these strings into our split argument array.
            for (int i = 0; i < numberOfArgs; i++)
                splitArgs[i] = Marshal.PtrToStringUni(
                    Marshal.ReadIntPtr(ptrToSplitArgs, i * IntPtr.Size));

            return splitArgs;
        }
        finally
        {
            // Free memory obtained by CommandLineToArgW.
            LocalFree(ptrToSplitArgs);
        }
    }

    [DllImport("shell32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    static extern IntPtr CommandLineToArgvW(
        [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)] string lpCmdLine,
        out int pNumArgs);

    [DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
    static extern IntPtr LocalFree(IntPtr hMem);

    static string Reverse(string s)
    {
        char[] charArray = s.ToCharArray();
        Array.Reverse(charArray);
        return new string(charArray);
    }

    static string GetEscapedCommandLine()
    {
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
        bool gotQuote = false;
        foreach (var c in Environment.CommandLine.Reverse())
        {
            if (c == '"')
                gotQuote = true;
            else if (gotQuote && c == '\\')
            {
                // double it
                sb.Append('\\');
            }
            else
                gotQuote = false;

            sb.Append(c);
        }

        return Reverse(sb.ToString());
    }

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        // Crazy hack
        args = SplitArgs(GetEscapedCommandLine()).Skip(1).ToArray();
    }