Re: [Lilypond-auto] Issue 2476 in lilypond: Doc AU: Using escape characters in different shells for -doptions can be inconsistent

[Colin Hall]

On Sat, May 05, 2012 at 08:07:44AM +0000, address@hidden wrote:
> 
> Comment #8 on issue 2476 by address@hidden: Doc AU: Using escape
> characters in different shells for -doptions can be inconsistent
> http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=2476
> 
> the problem occurs only with the _advanced_ options (-d … ) - basic
> options involving a file name with blanks ( --include= or --init=)
> work as expected; also a .ly file with blanks in the name can simply
> be processed when enclosed in double quotes.

Spot on. I did quite a lot of testing of this on Windows and Linux,
see earlier comments.

The shell (CMD.EXE on Windows, bash/tcsh et al on Linux) has to split
the command line into words. The space character is the separator
between words. Quoting allows a word to contain spaces.

A properly formed lilypond --include option looks like this:

--include="file name with spaces in it.ly"

The problem is to get those spaces and quote characters through the
shell and into the lilypond program as a single argument string.

That's not too hard on Linux but it's unusually complicated with the
Windows shell. Also, this might be the first experience of command
line quoting for a Windows user. So they have the least experience,
and the hardest problem.

> since it looks so complicated to explain (is it possible?) and
> document these quoting matters I see another solution: could the
> include-settings be implemented as a basic option!?

Yes, this is a great idea.

Cheers,
Colin.

-- 

Colin Hall