Why does AutoHotkey Run command have this design goal?

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Why does AutoHotkey Run command have this design goal?

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deleyd

Joined: 08 Mar 2008
Posts: 64
Location: Santa Barbara

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 12:11 am Post subject: Why does AutoHotkey Run command have this design goal?

Why does the AutoHotkey Run command have this design goal:

User can launch a document name containing spaces without having to enclose it in double quotes.

This design decision is preventing users from passing parameters to script files. e.g. you can't do:

Code:

Run, MyScript.vbs param1 param2 param3

It's easy to enclose a filename containing spaces in double quotes
The DOS command prompt requires double quotes around a file name containing spaces
This goal prevents the AutoHotkey Run command from working like a DOS line mode command. Specifically, users can not pass parameters to scripts.

I know there are ugly workarounds, such as using %comspec%, which causes a DOS window to temporarily flash onto the screen.

Krogdor

Joined: 18 Apr 2008
Posts: 1390
Location: The Interwebs

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 2:05 am Post subject: Re: Why does AutoHotkey Run command have this design goal?

deleyd wrote:

I know there are ugly workarounds, such as using %comspec%, which causes a DOS window to temporarily flash onto the screen.

You can run the window as hidden by specifying that in the Run options.

Lexikos

Joined: 17 Oct 2006
Posts: 7295
Location: Australia

Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2009 7:44 am Post subject:

Perhaps Run should behave like CreateProcess:

Quote:

The lpApplicationName parameter can be NULL. In that case, the module name must be the first white space–delimited token in the lpCommandLine string. If you are using a long file name that contains a space, use quoted strings to indicate where the file name ends and the arguments begin; otherwise, the file name is ambiguous. For example, consider the string "c:\program files\sub dir\program name". This string can be interpreted in a number of ways. The system tries to interpret the possibilities in the following order:

c:\program.exe

c:\program files\sub.exe

c:\program files\sub dir\program.exe

c:\program files\sub dir\program name.exe

Source: MSDN: CreateProcess Function

I suppose it would just need to test each space-delimited substring as is before appending ".exe".

Comments in the AutoHotkey source code say (about CreateProcess, which is used by Run for executable files):

Code:

      // MSDN: "If [lpCurrentDirectory] is NULL, the new process is created with the same
      // current drive and directory as the calling process." (i.e. since caller may have
      // specified a NULL aWorkingDir). Also, we pass NULL in for the first param so that
      // it will behave the following way (hopefully under all OSes): "the first white-space – delimited
      // token of the command line specifies the module name. If you are using a long file name that
      // contains a space, use quoted strings to indicate where the file name ends and the arguments
      // begin (see the explanation for the lpApplicationName parameter). If the file name does not
      // contain an extension, .exe is appended. Therefore, if the file name extension is .com,
      // this parameter must include the .com extension. If the file name ends in a period (.) with
      // no extension, or if the file name contains a path, .exe is not appended. If the file name does
      // not contain a directory path, the system searches for the executable file in the following
      // sequence...".

I suppose the red text is no longer accurate for "current" versions of Windows.

n-l-i-d
Guest

Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2009 8:34 pm Post subject:

Code:

Run, cscript.exe //nologo "MyScript.vbs" "something" "somethingelse" "param3", , Hide

;or

myscript = MyScript.vbs
param1 = something
param2 = somethingelse

Run, cscript.exe //nologo "%myscript%" "%param1%" "%param2%" "param3", , Hide

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