I'm having a problem moving forward through a path with PowerShell. I am able to move up the directory but not down. Here's the situation:
I open PowerShell and type in the "pwd" command and it shows that I am currently in PS C:\Users\Robert Inspiron14>
I type the command "cd.." and now I move to PS C:\Users>
I then attempt to change directories by typing: "cd C:\Users\Robert Inspiron14" and I am unable to. Unfortunately, I can't post a picture yet due to lack of reputation.
I'm able to perform the change in CMD but not PowerShell. Also, I don't know how to change the User from "Robert Inspiron14" to just "Robert". Any help is appreciated!
Before PowerShell can execute your cd command, it needs to parse it, and PowerShell's parser interprets your command like this:
cd C:\Users\Robert Inspiron14
\/ \_____________/ \________/
Command Name | |
argument 1 |
argument 2
In other words, C:\Users\Robert and Inspiron14 are interpreted as separate arguments.
Neither argument is a path to a valid directory, so cd (or rather Set-Location for which cd is an alias) throws an error.
You can force PowerShell to recognize C:\Users\Robert Inspiron14 as a single string argument by qualifying its boundaries using quotation marks (both " and ' will work):
cd 'C:\Users\Robert Inspiron14'
You can read more about how PowerShell parses command expressions in the about_Parsing help topic
To complement Mathias R. Jessen's helpful answer with more background information:
Quoting an argument that contains spaces is a general syntactic necessity, in all shells, because unquoted spaces are used to separate multiple arguments.
It isn't only spaces that require quoting, but any of PowerShell's so-called metacharacters (characters that, when used unquoted, have syntactic function); for instance, passing the path to a directory literally named a;b requires quoting as well, given that ; would otherwise be interpreted as a statement separator.
There are multiple quoting styles:
Since your path value is a literal - it contains no variable references or expressions - a verbatim (single-quoted) string ('...') is the best choice.
cd 'C:\Users\Robert Inspiron14'
If your path contains variables or subexpressions, you must use an expandable (double-quoted) string ("...")[1]
cd "$HOME\Documents"
Another, less common solution is to individually escape the space characters with `, the so-called backtick, PowerShell's escape character:
cd C:\Users\Robert` Inspiron14
Also note:
PowerShell's tab-completion automatically applies quoting as necessary.
cd.. is the name of a built-in function in PowerShell, whose sole purpose is to emulate cmd.exe's (questionably permissive) behavior (see below); the function performs a syntactically correct Set-Location .. call (verify by executing ${function:cd..}), with a space separating the command name from its argument.
Contrast with cmd.exe:
Unfortunately, cmd.exe's built-in cd command decided not to enforce its usual syntax rules, and enabled calls such as cd C:\Program Files.
It should never have done that: While convenient at first glance, it constitutes a problematic exception from the usual rules that invites confusion.
Note that cmd.exe's tab completion properly quotes arguments that contain spaces.
Similarly, cd.. was unfortunately allowed as as syntactically exceptional alternative to the correct cd .. - see the comments on this answer for details.
[1] Note "..."-quoting isn't strictly necessary if you use variable references in a path, as long as any literal components do not require quoting; e.g., $HOME\foo is fine without quoting, whereas the " around "$HOME\foo bar" are required. With subexpressions ($(...)), the rules get more complicated, so the simplest approach is to always use "..."-quoting with them.
I am working with Powershell. My issue is that my file path (which does not exist on a local computer) has an apostrophe in it. Powershell is seeing this as a single quote, so it is giving me the following error: The string is missing the terminator: '. I thought that I could escape the single quote using a backtick, but that gave me the same error.
The error does not occur when I am doing the first line of code, and I don't even need the backtick for that part. I can even see that the contents of the variable matches up with the file path that I am using. It is only when I am doing the invoke-expression part that it is giving me the error.
I am using https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.utility/invoke-expression?view=powershell-7, so I don't think the second line of the code is the problem.
My code is listed below:
$code = "\\example\example\John_Doe`'s_Folder\example.ps1"
invoke-expression -command $code
I have also tried wrapping the entire file path in double-quotes and single-quotes, but my program did not like that either. I can't remove the apostrophe as we have over a hundred of systems that are directing to John_Doe's_Folder.
Invoke-Expression should generally be avoided; definitely don't use it to invoke a script or external program.
In your case, simply use &, the call operator to invoke your script via the path stored in variable $code (see this answer for background information), in which case the embedded ' needs no escaping at all:
$code = "\\example\example\John_Doe's_Folder\example.ps1"
& $code
As for what you tried:
"\\example\example\John_Doe`'s_Folder\example.ps1" turns into the following verbatim string content:
\\example\example\John_Doe's_Folder\example.ps1
That is, the ` was removed by PowerShell's parsing of the "..." string literal itself, inside of which ` acts as the escape character; since escape sequence `' has no special meaning, the ` is simply removed.
For the ` to "survive", you need to escape the ` char. itself, which you can do with ``:
"\\example\example\John_Doe``'s_Folder\example.ps1"
This question was asked many times on SO and yet...
All I've seen were solutions where the input string has to be modified. Either by replacing all double quotes with single quotes or by using backticks.
But I have no control over the input string since I have no access to the source. I cannot change Hello "W"orld to Hello 'W'orld or Hello """W"""orld
What I can do is to wrap the whole string with any escaping characters. For example with single quotes around 'Hello "W"orld'. But none of thoses escaping mechanisms I tried worked. And I can change my PowerShell script
Q: How can I pass a string with double quotes to PowerShell as argument and retain the quotes?
How to reproduce
Save this
cls
write-host $args[0]
as PowerShell script echoArgs1.ps1 on your desktop.
Open a CMD window, navigate to your desktop folder and enter
powershell -file echoArgs1.ps1 "Hello "W"orld"
Current Output
Desired Output
You're using the $(CurText) macro to pass the currently selected text in Visual Studio to a PowerShell script file via an external tools definition.
Unfortunately, Visual Studio doesn't offer a way to escape double quotes in the selected text to guarantee that it is ultimately seen as-is by whatever external executable you pass it to.
(For most executables, including PowerShell, embedding literal " chars. in a "..."-enclosed argument requires escaping them as \" - see this answer for the full story.)
Due to this lack of proper escaping, PowerShell won't parse text passed as an argument to a script file (*.ps1) via the -File CLI parameter as expected if it contains literal " chars.
This is Visual Studio's shortcoming, but there is a workaround:
With just one argument being passed, inspect the raw command line via [Environment]::CommandLine, and consider everything after the *.ps1 file the argument, verbatim.
To simplify that process, pass $(CurText) without enclosing it in "..." in the external-tool definition (and make sure that it is separated from the previous token by just one space char.).
Inside of echoArgs1.ps1, use the following command to retrieve the argument verbatim:
$rawText = ([Environment]::CommandLine -split '\.ps1 ', 2)[-1]
The problem is that the command line interpreter has already removed the quotes. In other words, the quotes are already gone before the command reaches the PowerShell interpreter.
What you might try to do is: pulling the original bare command line ($MyInvocation.Line) and resolve the arguments by removing the command itself:
$FileName = [System.IO.Path]::GetFileName($MyInvocation.MyCommand.Path)
$Arguments = $MyInvocation.Line -Replace ("^.*\\" + $FileName.Replace(".", "\.") + "['"" ]\s*")
Write-Host $Arguments
Note that there are a few pitfalls with regards to the command filename in the command line:
it might contain a relative or absolute path
it might be quoted or not
I want to call a batch file with powershell, like this:
$databaseUrl = "jdbc:sqlserver://$($databaseConfig.Server):$($databaseConfig.Port);databaseName=$($databaseConfig.Name)"
./database/liquibase/liquibase.bat --url=$databaseUrl
My problem is that the = is replaced with a whitespace, leaving only --url as the first parameter. I try putting it in quotes:
.\database\liquibase\liquibase.bat "--url=$databaseUrl"
...with the same result. I read that I can use backtick to escape characters:
.\database\liquibase\liquibase.bat "--url`=$databaseUrl"
...but the equals sign still disappears. I have also tried using --% to prevent any formatting from happening:
.\database\liquibase\liquibase.bat --% "--url=$databaseUrl"
but then the variable $databaseUrl is interpreted verbatim.
Any help on how to pass the argument, unformatted, but with variables expanded would be greatly appreciated.
maybe tricky, but as the escape operator --% allow environmnent variable expansion you could try this :
$env:databaseUrl ="jdbc:sqlserver://$($databaseConfig.Server):$($databaseConfig.Port)"
$env:db="$($databaseConfig.Name)"
.\database\liquibase\liquibase.bat --% "--url=%databaseUrl%;databasename=%db%"
I have a Windows application and on events, it calls a command like this:
C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass "G:\test.ps1 -name '%x' -data '%y'"
The name parameter sometimes has ' in it. Is it possible to escape that somehow?
This is actually a lot trickier than you'd think. Escaping nested quotes in strings passed from cmd to PowerShell is a major headache. What makes this one especially tricky is that you need to make the replacement in a variable expanded by cmd in the quoted argument passed to powershell.exe within a single-quoted argument passed to a PowerShell script parameter. AFAIK cmd doesn't have any native functionality for even basic string replacements, so you need PowerShell to do the replacement for you.
If the argument to the -data paramater (the one contained in the cmd variable x) doesn't necessarily need to be single-quoted, the simplest thing to do is to double-quote it, so that single quotes within the value of x don't need to be escaped at all. I say "simplest", but even that is a little tricky. As Vasili Syrakis indicated, ^ is normally the escape character in cmd, but to escape double quotes within a (double-)quoted string, you need to use a \. So, you can write your batch command like this:
C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass "G:\test.ps1 -name \"%x%\" -data '%y%'"
That passes the following command to PowerShell:
G:\test.ps1 -name "value of x, which may contain 's" -data 'value of y'
If, however, x can also contain characters that are special characters in PowerShell interpolated strings (", $, or `), then it becomes a LOT more complicated. The problem is that %x is a cmd variable that gets expanded by cmd before PowerShell has a chance to touch it. If you single-quote it in the command you're passing to powershell.exe and it contains a single quote, then you're giving the PowerShell session a string that gets terminated early, so PowerShell doesn't have the opportunity to perform any operations on it. The following obviously doesn't work, because the -replace operator needs to be supplied a valid string before you can replace anything:
'foo'bar' -replace "'", "''"
On the other hand, if you double-quote it, then PowerShell interpolates the string before it performs any replacements on it, so if it contains any special characters, they're interpreted before they can be escaped by a replacement. I searched high and low for other ways to quote literal strings inline (something equivalent to perl's q//, in which nothing needs to be escaped but the delimiter of your choice), but there doesn't seem to be anything.
So, the only solution left is to use a here string, which requires a multi-line argument. That's tricky in a batch file, but it can be done:
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
set LF=^
set pscommand=G:\test.ps1 -name #'!LF!!x!!LF!'# -data '!y!'
C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass "!pscommand!"
This assumes that x and y were set earlier in the batch file. If your app can only send a single-line command to cmd, then you'll need to put the above into a batch file, adding the following two lines to the beginning:
set x=%~1
set y=%~2
Then invoke the batch file like this:
path\test.bat "%x%" "%y%"
The ~ strips out the quotes surrounding the command line arguments. You need the quotes in order to include spaces in the variables, but the quotes are also added to the variable value. Batch is stupid that way.
The two blank lines following set LF=^ are required.
That takes care of single quotes which also interpreting all other characters in the value of x literally, with one exception: double quotes. Unfortunately, if double quotes may be part of the value as you indicated in a comment, I don't believe that problem is surmountable without the use of a third party utility. The reason is that, as mentioned above, batch doesn't have a native way of performing string replacements, and the value of x is expanded by cmd before PowerShell ever sees it.
BTW...GOOD QUESTION!!
UPDATE:
In fact, it turns out that it is possible to perform static string replacements in cmd. Duncan added an answer that shows how to do that. It's a little confusing, so I'll elaborate on what's going on in Duncan's solution.
The idea is that %var:hot=cold% expands to the value of the variable var, with all occurrences of hot replaced with cold:
D:\Scratch\soscratch>set var=You're such a hot shot!
D:\Scratch\soscratch>echo %var%
You're such a hot shot!
D:\Scratch\soscratch>echo %var:hot=cold%
You're such a cold scold!
So, in the command (modified from Duncan's answer to align with the OP's example, for the sake of clarity):
powershell G:\test.ps1 -name '%x:'=''%' -data '%y:'=''%'
all occurrences of ' in the variables x and y are replaced with '', and the command expands to
powershell G:\test.ps1 -name 'a''b' -data 'c''d'
Let's break down the key element of that, '%x:'=''%':
The two 's at the beginning and the end are the explicit outer quotes being passed to PowerShell to quote the argument, i.e. the same single quotes that the OP had around %x
:'='' is the string replacement, indicating that ' should be replaced with ''
%x:'=''% expands to the value of the variable x with ' replaced by '', which is a''b
Therefore, the whole thing expands to 'a''b'
This solution escapes the single quotes in the variable value much more simply than my workaround above. However, the OP indicated in an update that the variable may also contain double quotes, and so far this solution still doesn't pass double quotes within x to PowerShell--those still get stripped out by cmd before PowerShell receives the command.
The good news is that with the cmd string replacement method, this becomes surmountable. Execute the following cmd commands after the initial value of x has already been set:
Replace ' with '', to escape the single quotes for PowerShell:
set x=%x:'=''%
Replace " with \", to escape the double quotes for cmd:
set x=%x:"=\"%
The order of these two assignments doesn't matter.
Now, the PowerShell script can be called using the syntax the OP was using in the first place (path to powershell.exe removed to fit it all on one line):
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass "G:\test.ps1 -name '%x' -data '%y'"
Again, if the app can only send a one-line command to cmd, these three commands can be placed in a batch file, and the app can call the batch file and pass the variables as shown above (first bullet in my original answer).
One interesting point to note is that if the replacement of " with \" is done inline rather than with a separate set command, you don't escape the "s in the string replacement, even though they're inside a double-quoted string, i.e. like this:
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass "G:\test.ps1 -name '%x:"=\"' -data '%y'"
...not like this:
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass "G:\test.ps1 -name '%x:\"=\\"' -data '%y'"
I'm slightly unclear in the question whether %x and %y are CMD variables (in which case you should be using %x% to substitute it in, or a substitution happening in your other application.
You need to escape the single quote you are passing to PowerShell by doubling it in the CMD.EXE command line. You can do this by replacing any quotes in the variable with two single quotes.
For example:
C:\scripts>set X=a'b
C:\scripts>set Y=c'd
C:\scripts>powershell .\test.ps1 -name '%x:'=''%' '%y:'=''%'
Name is 'a'b'
Data is 'c'd'
where test.ps1 contains:
C:\scripts>type test.ps1
param($name,$data)
write-output "Name is '$name'"
write-output "Data is '$data'"
If the command line you gave is being generated in an external application, you should still be able to do this by assigning the string to a variable first and using & to separate the commands (be careful to avoid trailing spaces on the set command).
set X=a'b& powershell .\test.ps1 -name '%x:'=''%'
The CMD shell supports both a simple form of substitution, and a way to extract substrings when substituting variables. These only work when substituting in a variable, so if you want to do multiple substitutions at the same time, or substitute and substring extraction then you need to do one at a time setting variables with each step.
Environment variable substitution has been enhanced as follows:
%PATH:str1=str2%
would expand the PATH environment variable, substituting each occurrence
of "str1" in the expanded result with "str2". "str2" can be the empty
string to effectively delete all occurrences of "str1" from the expanded
output. "str1" can begin with an asterisk, in which case it will match
everything from the beginning of the expanded output to the first
occurrence of the remaining portion of str1.
May also specify substrings for an expansion.
%PATH:~10,5%
would expand the PATH environment variable, and then use only the 5
characters that begin at the 11th (offset 10) character of the expanded
result. If the length is not specified, then it defaults to the
remainder of the variable value. If either number (offset or length) is
negative, then the number used is the length of the environment variable
value added to the offset or length specified.
%PATH:~-10%
would extract the last 10 characters of the PATH variable.
%PATH:~0,-2%
would extract all but the last 2 characters of the PATH variable.
I beleive you can escape it with ^:
C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass "G:\test.ps1 -name ^'%x^' -data ^'%y^'"
Try encapsulating your random single quote variable inside a pair of double quotes to avoid the issue.
C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass "G:\test.ps1 -name `"%x`" -data `"%y`""
The problem arises because you used single quotes and the random extra single quote appearing inside the single quotes fools PowerShell. This shouldn't occur if you double quote with backticks, as the single quote will not throw anything off inside double quotes and the backticks will allow you to double/double quote.
Just FYI, I ran into some trouble with a robocopy command in powershell and wanting to exclude a folder with a single quote in the name (and backquote didn't help and ps and robocopy don't work with double quote); so, I solved it by just making a variable for the folder with a quote in it:
$folder="John Doe's stuff"
robocopy c:\users\jd\desktop \\server\folder /mir /xd 'normal folder' $folder
One wacky way around this problem is to use echo in cmd to pipe your command to 'powershell -c "-" ' instead of using powershell "arguments"
for instance:
ECHO Write-Host "stuff'" | powershell -c "-"
output:
stuff'
Couple of notes:
Do not quote the command text you are echoing or it won't work
If you want to use any pipes in the PowerShell command they must be triple-escaped with carats to work properly
^^^|