OpenEuphoria

1. RENAME problem: directories with spaces?

• Posted by Dan Moyer <danielmoyer at prodigy.net> Sep 04, 2006
• 583 views

Juergen's suggestion for using "rename" with "system" command,  

sequence myvar
myvar = "\"the old.txt\" \"the new.txt\""    -- or whatever is required
system("rename " & myvar, 2)

seems like it should have worked, but didn't; I get an error about
 "bad command format", but when I make it print out, it looks fine, except:  

the path to the file(s) includes more than one directory with SPACES in them,
which I think is the problem, and I vaguely remember that there's a "trick"
to making directories with spaces work, but I don't rember what it IS.

Is there such a trick?  (& what is it if there is)
(in the code example above, I put the path to the file in front of myvar)

Dan

3. Re: RENAME problem: directories with spaces?

• Posted by Juergen Luethje <j.lue at gmx.de> Sep 04, 2006
• 570 views

Dan Moyer wrote:

> Juergen's suggestion for using "rename" with "system" command,
> }}}
<eucode>
> sequence myvar
> myvar = "\"the old.txt\" \"the new.txt\""    -- or whatever is required
> system("rename " & myvar, 2)
> </eucode>
{{{

> seems like it should have worked, but didn't; I get an error about
>  "bad command format", but when I make it print out, it looks fine, except:
> 
> 
> the path to the file(s) includes more than one directory with SPACES in them,
> which I think is the problem, and I vaguely remember that there's a "trick"
> to making directories with spaces work, but I don't rember what it IS.
> 
> Is there such a trick?  (& what is it if there is)
> (in the code example above, I put the path to the file in front of myvar)

When there are spaces inside a file or directory name or path, it must
be enclosed in double quotes. That's why in my example above I did NOT
write
myvar = "the old.txt the new.txt"

but

myvar = "\"the old.txt\" \"the new.txt\""

This works fine here with EXW.EXE 2.5 on Windows 98, when "the old.txt"
is a file as well as a directory. Now I tried a directory name that
contains a path, e.g.

sequence myvar
myvar = "\"c:\\temp\\the old\" \"c:\\temp\\the new\""
system("rename " & myvar, 2)

and, strange enough, I get the message:
"Invalid parameter - c:\temp\the new".

But by virtue of the infinite wisdom of M$, when the _new_ name doesn't
contain a path at all, everything seems to work fine:

sequence myvar
myvar = "\"c:\\temp\\the old\" \"the new\""
system("rename " & myvar, 2)

As a general solution, I think something like the following can be used:

procedure rename (sequence oldNameWithPath, sequence newNameWithoutPath)
   -- rename a file or directory (both names may contain spaces)
system(sprintf("rename \"%s\" \"%s\"", {oldNameWithPath,
   newNameWithoutPath}), 2)
end procedure

Regards,
   Juergen

-- 
Who is general fault, and why does he read my hard disk?

5. Re: RENAME problem: directories with spaces?

• Posted by Juergen Luethje <j.lue at gmx.de> Sep 04, 2006
• 568 views

Al Getz wrote:

<snip>

> Hi Dan,
> 
> Can you use the Win API here?

The following code uses the Windows API:

include misc.e
include dll.e
include machine.e

atom Kernel32
integer MoveFile

if platform() = WIN32 then
   Kernel32 = open_dll("kernel32.dll")
MoveFile = define_c_func(Kernel32, "MoveFileA", {C_POINTER, C_POINTER},
   C_LONG)
end if

function rename (sequence oldName, sequence newName)
   atom lpszOldname, lpszNewname, ret

   lpszOldname = allocate_string(oldName)
   lpszNewname = allocate_string(newName)
   ret = c_func(MoveFile, {lpszOldname, lpszNewname})
   free(lpszOldname)
   free(lpszNewname)
   return ret                                          -- 0 on error
end function

-- Demo
-- In contrast to using system("rename ...", ...), here the new name
-- can and must contain the appropriate path.
? rename("c:\\temp\\the old one", "c:\\temp\\the new one")

Regards,
   Juergen

7. Re: RENAME problem: directories with spaces?

• Posted by Dan Moyer <danielmoyer at prodigy.net> Sep 04, 2006
• 565 views

Al Getz wrote:
> 
> Dan Moyer wrote:
> > 
> 
> Hi Dan,
> 
> Can you use the Win API here?
> 
> Al

Al, 
I didn't know how to, but Juergen's example for "system" worked just fine,
but thanks for the suggestion anyway. :)
Dan

9. Re: RENAME problem: directories with spaces?

• Posted by Juergen Luethje <j.lue at gmx.de> Sep 04, 2006
• 551 views

The subject of this thread certainly is NOT
"Digest for EUforum at topica.com, issue 6085"

Cuvier Christian wrote:

>> posted by: Dan Moyer <danielmoyer at prodigy.net>
>>
>>
>> Juergen's suggestion for using "rename" with "system" command,
>> }}}
<eucode>
>> sequence myvar
>> myvar = "\"the old.txt\" \"the new.txt\""    -- or whatever
>> is required
>> system("rename " & myvar, 2)
>> </eucode>
{{{

>> seems like it should have worked, but didn't; I get an error about
>>  "bad command format", but when I make it print out, it looks
>> fine, except:
>>
>> the path to the file(s) includes more than one directory with
>> SPACES in them,
>> which I think is the problem, and I vaguely remember that
>> there's a "trick"
>> to making directories with spaces work, but I don't rember what it IS.
>>
>> Is there such a trick?  (& what is it if there is)
>> (in the code example above, I put the path to the file in
>> front of myvar)
>>
>> Dan
>>
> 
> To pass directory names with spaces or other non alpha characters in it, you
> only have to surround them with double quotes, as in

"only" is false.

> rename "C:\Program Files\test" "C:\Program Files\old test"
> 
> which needs the following Eu code to be issued:
> 
> }}}
<eucode>
> system(
> "rename \"C:\\Program Files\\test\" \"C:\\Program Files\\old test\""
> ,2)
> </eucode>
{{{


Code like this does not work on my system, see
<http://www.listfilter.com/EUforum/m9587.html>.

Regards,
   Juergen

-- 
Who is general fault, and why does he read my hard disk?

11. Re: RENAME problem: directories with spaces?

• Posted by Antonio Alessi <a.admin at myway.it> Sep 04, 2006
• 565 views

Dan Moyer wrote:
> 
> 
> Juergen's suggestion for using "rename" with "system" command,  
> }}}
<eucode>
> sequence myvar
> myvar = "\"the old.txt\" \"the new.txt\""    -- or whatever is required
> system("rename " & myvar, 2)
> </eucode>
{{{

> seems like it should have worked, but didn't; I get an error about
>  "bad command format", but when I make it print out, it looks fine, except:
>  
> 
> the path to the file(s) includes more than one directory with SPACES in them,
> which I think is the problem, and I vaguely remember that there's a "trick"
> to making directories with spaces work, but I don't rember what it IS.
> 
> Is there such a trick?  (& what is it if there is)
> (in the code example above, I put the path to the file in front of myvar)
> 
> Dan

Hello Dan,

sorry to be late, but I met a similar problem in downloading filenames 
with spaces inside, like "FILE Name.ext". Te result was a "Bad Request"
page answer by the server, as the system searched just the file "FILE"
and ignores the whole " Name.ext".

The trick there consisted in replacing the spaces with "%20", i.e.
"FILE%20Name.ext". Don't have time to test this now, but this answer 
can be useful however, or introduce to something like, so here it is.

antonio