basilisk561
14th January 2009 15:49 UTC

BUG: Ampersand in path causes ExecCmd to fail
Hello,

At install time I extract an EXE to $PLUGINSDIR.

On a page in the installer I attempt to shell out to this EXE as so:

ExecCmd::exec '"$PLUGINSDIR\myexe.exe" param1 param2 etc'

A certain Windows user is logged in with account username "Bob & Gina". The command shell attempt fails. Filemon reveals that ExecCmd is looking here:

C:\Documents and Settings\Bob & Gina\Desktop\G~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\nsw557.tmp\myexe.exe

When it should be looking here:

C:\Documents and Settings\Bob & Gina\LOCALS~1\Temp\nsw557.tmp\myexe.exe

Notice that "Desktop" is included in the incorrect path. This is because that is where the installer EXE is located and run from. If the installer EXE path changes, that is reflected in the path ExecCmd attempts to execute MYEXE.EXE from.

All other references to $PLUGINSDIR are evaluated properly -- installer INI files, etc. are correctly located. This is why I believe the problem resides with ExecCmd.

Any ideers on this?

FYI SetOutPath has no effect on this, in case that was a coming suggestion. :(

Thanks in advance!

Red Wine
15th January 2009 08:38 UTC

Seems like you're right. What about included nsExec ?
Does it produce the same issue ?

basilisk561
15th January 2009 13:47 UTC

Haven't tried nsExec.

I will say that it appears in the ExecCmd source that the code responsible for expanding $PLUGINSDIR and passing it to the plugins resides in NSIS itself. In other words, I would expect any plugins to have this same issue. ExecCmd just takes what it is given as far as the command line is concerned.

I would have thought this issue would have surfaced long before now. Or no?

Any things I can do like escaping the ampersand, etc. to get this working without a huge refactor like switching to nsExec?

kichik
15th January 2009 13:56 UTC

The code that expands $PLUGINSDIR is indeed not present in any plug-in but in the installer itself. But as you said, it works fine in other places and the same expansion code is used everywhere so it's probably a problem with ExecCmd.

basilisk561
15th January 2009 14:58 UTC

Originally posted by kichik
The code that expands $PLUGINSDIR is indeed not present in any plug-in but in the installer itself. But as you said, it works fine in other places and the same expansion code is used everywhere so it's probably a problem with ExecCmd.

kichik
15th January 2009 15:17 UTC

That's the code I meant. It's all the same for both plug-ins and other script parts.

basilisk561
15th January 2009 15:57 UTC

nsExec works in this situation. I've changed my installer to that effect. No big deal. ;)

Thanks to all who helped on this.

Takhir
15th January 2009 16:25 UTC

Strange issue, might be good to have script sample. May be even reproducing situation without creation of special account :)
In ExecDos following 2 lines only work with path to executable

popstring(ptp->dosExec);
...
if(!CreateProcess(NULL, ptp->dosExec, NULL, NULL, TRUE, 0, NULL, NULL, psi, &pi))

ExecDos::exec /NOUNLOAD /ASYNC /DETAILED /TIMEOUT=6000 "C:\Users\takhir\Documents\Kisa & Osja\consApp.exe" "test_login$\ntest_pwd$\n"