Package: sed;
Reported by: nlweb <at> sapo.pt
Date: Wed, 29 May 2019 15:25:02 UTC
Severity: normal
Tags: notabug
Done: Assaf Gordon <assafgordon <at> gmail.com>
Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.
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From: nlweb <at> sapo.pt To: Assaf Gordon <assafgordon <at> gmail.com> Cc: 35993 <at> debbugs.gnu.org Subject: bug#35993: Windows port redirection bug Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2019 16:27:46 +0100
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Hi Assaf, These are my findings on Windows 10: S:\temp>type teste.txt hello"world S:\temp>SED 's/"//g' teste.txt > out.txt SED: can't read >: No such file or directory SED: can't read out.txt: No such file or directory helloworld S:\temp>SED s/\"//g teste.txt > out.txt SED: -e expression #1, char 26: unterminated `s' command S:\temp>SED "s/\"//g" teste.txt > out.txt SED: can't read >: No such file or directory SED: can't read out.txt: No such file or directory helloworld S:\temp>sed-4.7-64bit s/\"//g teste.txt > out.txt helloworldsed-4.7-64bit: can't read >: Invalid argument sed-4.7-64bit: can't read out.txt: No such file or directory S:\temp>sed-4.7-64bit "s/\"//g" teste.txt > out.txt helloworldsed-4.7-64bit: can't read >: Invalid argument sed-4.7-64bit: can't read out.txt: No such file or directory As you can see, the problem persists. My goal is to remove double quotes, so I replace them with nothing. This command line works inside a bash shell, but gives the above errors under Windows. Thanks! Nuno Citando Assaf Gordon <assafgordon <at> gmail.com>: > tags 35993 notabug > close 35993 > stop > > Hello, > > On Wed, May 29, 2019 at 03:53:06PM +0100, nlweb <at> sapo.pt wrote: >> The bug is reproducible with this command: SED 'S/"//G' TESTE.TXT > OUT.TXT >> >> It should remove double quotes and save the result in the out.txt file. With >> a Bash shell it works as expected, but under Windows 10's command line it >> prints the resulting output and issues this error: >> >> SED: CAN'T READ >: NO SUCH FILE OR DIRECTORY >> SED: CAN'T READ OUT.TXT: NO SUCH FILE OR DIRECTORY >> >> Escaping the double quote doesn't change the result, but if I use another >> character instead, like SED 'S/X//G' TESTE.TXT > OUT.TXT it works. > > This is not a bug in sed - just incorrect usage of quotes in the Windows > command prompt (CMD.EXE). > > Before going into (long) details, here's the solution: > > c:\Users\gordon\Desktop> type teste.txt > hello"world > > c:\Users\gordon\Desktop> sed-4.7-64bit.exe "s/\"/XXX/g" teste.txt > helloXXXworld > > or even: > > c:\Users\gordon\Desktop> sed-4.7-64bit.exe s/\"/XXX/g teste.txt > helloXXXworld > > Now some details: > > 1. > Single-quotes have special meaning AT ALL in cmd.exe. > There's no point using them. In fact, they will just cause more > problems, as they are passed as-is to the sed program, and sed will > complain that a single-quote is not a recognizable sed command: > > c:\Users\gordon\Desktop> sed-4.7-64bit.exe ' > sed-4.7-64bit.exe: -e expression #1, char 1: unknown command: `'' > > 2. > Double-quotes DO NOT behave like you expect if you are > familiar with unix-style shell quoting. > > In unix-world, quotes (both single and double) act in pairs (opening > and closing), and we can speak about "text inside single/double quotes" and > "text outside quotes". > > A side-effect of this approach is that strings with unbalanced quotes > result in parsing error. E.g. the following is not a complete/valid > command in unix: > > echo hello"world > > 3. > In windows' CMD.EXE, double-quote character (ONE character) changes an > internal parsing state which controls whether special characters are > important or ignored (surprising/unintuitive if you're coming from unix > world). a SPACE character is the most common example of special > characters. > > For example, in CMD.EXE the following is valid command: > > echo foo > hello" world.txt > > And it will create a file named HELLO<SPACE>WORLD<DOT>TXT . > > The above string is parsed like so: > 1. 'hello' - as is > 2. double-quote - turns on "special character handling" state. > 3. space character - kept (not ignored) because of the new state. > 4. 'world.txt' - as is. > > Another example, the following two commands are valid in CMD.EXE. > In the second command, once a double-quote character is encountered, > The PIPE character (loses its special meaning and is just consumed as > part of the string): > > c:\Users\gordon\Desktop\a>echo "hello world" | more > "hello world" > > c:\Users\gordon\Desktop\a>echo "hello | more > "hello | more > > 4. > For more strange cases, try the following: > > c:\Users\gordon\Desktop\c> echo foo > hello.txt > c:\Users\gordon\Desktop\c> echo foo > "hello world.txt" > c:\Users\gordon\Desktop\c> echo foo > hello" w o r l d.txt > c:\Users\gordon\Desktop\c> echo foo > hello" world.txt > c:\Users\gordon\Desktop\c> echo foo > 'hello world.txt' > > c:\Users\gordon\Desktop\c> dir > Volume in drive C is OS > Volume Serial Number is 4CA3-CC48 > > Directory of c:\Users\gordon\Desktop\c > > 06/01/2019 12:50 PM <DIR> . > 06/01/2019 12:50 PM <DIR> .. > 06/01/2019 12:50 PM 17 'hello > 06/01/2019 12:50 PM 6 hello world.txt > 06/01/2019 12:50 PM 6 hello w o r l d.txt > 06/01/2019 12:49 PM 6 hello world.txt > 06/01/2019 12:49 PM 6 hello.txt > 5 File(s) 41 bytes > 2 Dir(s) 384,140,804,096 bytes free > > 5. > To go even deeper into the nitty-gritty of CMD.EXE parsing and quoting, > see this interesting blog post: > http://www.windowsinspired.com/understanding-the-command-line-string-and-arguments-received-by-a-windows-program/ > > As such, I'm closing this as "not a bug", but discussion can continue > by replying to this thread. > > regards, > - assaf > > P.S. > A newer version of SED (version 4.7) was released in December 2019, > and it contains few minor fixes/changes to behaviour on windows. > See here on how to build and/or download the binaries: > https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/sed-devel/2018-12/msg00031.html
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