Bug (Windows): Launching through API fails with URLs containing single quote marks about launchy

[copiousfreetime]

if you change that to Launchy.open("http://google.com/?q=launchy's+great", :dry_run => true) then it should output the exact parameters that were sent to system(). My initial thought is that the system call itself is wrapping the parameter in quotes, as it I don't think Launchy is.

If you can do that along with the debug, that should add some additional help. I don't have a windows machine to do this testing on, so all my windows fixing is done by generous folks like yourself.

Does start have the same syntax in all versions of windows? Could the possibility exist that there are slight differences between windows versions that i'll need to check?

[copiousfreetime]

The other item to possibly check is the use of #shellsplit in https://github.com/copiousfreetime/launchy/blob/master/lib/launchy/detect/runner.rb#L85. If you change that to just #split does everything work just fine?

[schmich]

My initial thought is that the system call itself is wrapping the parameter in quotes, as it I don't think Launchy is.

You're right. Looking at the documentation for system, the call behaves differently depending on the arguments specified.

The array version used in Launchy in runner.rb allows the system call to manipulate the command-line arguments. Using Process Monitor, I verified that the URL argument was indeed quoted.

Ultimately, I think we just have to appease start's unfortunate command-line syntax. I think the right fix here is to always specify the command in the form of cmd /c start /b "" "http://google.com/?q=launchy's+great" since the URL argument might have spaces and might need to be quoted anyway.

I'll submit a fix when I get the chance and ensure that this is the right behavior for all supported versions of Windows.

[copiousfreetime]

Excellent, and don't forget to add yourself to CONTRIBUTING.md

[copiousfreetime]

Hi @schmich checking in to see if you ever created a patch for this issue.

[copiousfreetime]

version 2.4.0 released which I hope fixes this. If you can, please verify.