Pass path with spaces as parameter to bat file

Question

I have a simple bat script that copies files from an known directory to a directory given by the user. How can I pass the path (it might contain spaces) to my script and use it with the xcopy command?

---

In my code i have the following

:READ_PWA_PATH
    if "%1" == "" ( 
        rem Set default path
        set PWA_PATH="C:\Program Files\PWA"
        rem
        echo You have not specified your PWA url.
        echo Default will be assumed: C:\Program Files\PWA. 
        choice /C:YN /M:"Do you wish to continue [Y] or cancel the script [N]?"
            IF ERRORLEVEL ==2 GOTO CANCEL
            IF ERRORLEVEL ==1 GOTO READ_WSS_SERVER_EXTENSIONS_PATH
        GOTO END
    ) else (
        set PWA_PATH=%1
    )

If I simply call the script I get the following error:

C:\Projects\Setup>install.cmd "C:\program files (x86)"

-----------------
SETUP SCRIPT
-----------------

files was unexpected at this time.
C:\Projects\Setup>

Answer 1

Interesting one. I love collecting quotes about quotes handling in cmd/command.

Your particular scripts gets fixed by using %1 instead of "%1" !!!

By adding an 'echo on' ( or getting rid of an echo off ), you could have easily found that out.

Answer 2

Use "%~1". %~1 alone removes surrounding quotes. However since you can't know whether the input parameter %1 has quotes or not, you should ensure by "%~1" that they are added for sure. This is especially helpful when concatenating variables, e.g. convert.exe "%~1.input" "%~1.output"

Answer 3

I think the OP's problem was that he wants to do BOTH of the following:

• Pass a parameter which may contain spaces
• Test whether the parameter is missing

As several posters have mentioned, to pass a parameter containing spaces, you must surround the actual parameter value with double quotes.

To test whether a parameter is missing, the method I always learned was:

if "%1" == ""

However, if the actual parameter is quoted (as it must be if the value contains spaces), this becomes

if ""actual parameter value"" == ""

which causes the "unexpected" error. If you instead use

if %1 == ""

then the error no longer occurs for quoted values. But in that case, the test no longer works when the value is missing -- it becomes

if  == ""

To fix this, use any other characters (except ones with special meaning to DOS) instead of quotes in the test:

if [%1] == []
if .%1. == ..
if abc%1xyz == abcxyz

Answer 4

"%~1" will work most of the time. However there are a few things you need to note for this:

1. It's not supported in Windows NT 4.0. You need Windows 2000 or later. (If you are coding a script compatible with old OS, beware.)
2. It does not make parameters secure and sanitized. My observation is that there is no way to properly sanitize the command line arguments in CMD scripts.

To demonstrate second point, let me give an example:

REM example.cmd
ECHO %~1

Run with example.cmd dummy^&DIR . The ampersand is escaped here ( ^& ) to prevent shell from interpreting as a command delimiter, so that it becomes part of the argument passed to the script. The DIR is interpreted as a command inside the sub-shell running the script, where it shouldn't.

Quoting it might work some time, but still insecure:

REM example2.cmd
SETLOCAL EnableExtensions EnableDelayedExpansion
SET "arg1=%~1"
ECHO "%~1"
ECHO !arg1:"=!

example2.cmd foo^"^&DIR^&^"bar will break it. DIR command will be run two times, one right after SET and the other right after the first ECHO. You see that the "%~1" you think is quoted well gets unquoted by the argument itself.

So, no way to make parsing arguments secure.

(EDIT: EnableDelayedExpansion doesn't work in Windows NT 4 either. Thanks to the info here: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/local.php)

Answer 5

If you have a path with spaces you must surround it with quotation marks (").

Not sure if that's exactly what you're asking though?

Answer 6

@echo off
setlocal enableextensions enabledelayedexpansion

if %1=="" (     
        rem Set default path
        set PWA_PATH="C:\Program Files\PWA"
        rem
        echo You have not specified your PWA url.
        echo Default will be assumed: C:\Program Files\PWA.     
        choice /C:YN /M:"Do you wish to continue [Y] or cancel the script [N]?"
                IF ERRORLEVEL ==2 GOTO CANCEL
                IF ERRORLEVEL ==1 GOTO READ_WSS_SERVER_EXTENSIONS_PATH
        GOTO END
    ) else (
        set PWA_PATH=%1
        @echo !PWA_PATH! vs. %1
        goto end
    )
:READ_WSS_SERVER_EXTENSIONS_PATH
echo ok
goto end
:CANCEL
echo cancelled
:end
echo. final %PWA_PATH% vs. %1

As VardhanDotNet mentions, %1 is enough.

"%1%" would add quotes around quotes: ""c:\Program Files\xxx"" which means:

• 'empty string' (""),
• followed by 'c:\Program',
• followed by the "unexpected here" 'Files\xxx',
• followed by an empty string ("")

Note however that if you need to use PWA_PATH within your IF clause, you need to refer if as !PWA_PATH! (hence the enabledelayedexpansion as the beginning of the script)

Answer 7

If your path contains space then try using %~s1. This will remove the space and appends ~1 to your path and more importantly it refers to the absolute path of your file. Try using it.