Reputation: 5086
I'm trying to do something similar to Get Visual Studio to run a T4 Template on every build using cmd's forfiles
to transform each template in VS2008.
If I execute
forfiles /m "*.tt" /s /c "\"%CommonProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Shared\TextTemplating\1.2\TextTransform.exe\" @file"
then I get TextTransform.exe
's error message (the screen of text explaining what to pass it as arguments).
If I instead execute
forfiles /m "*.tt" /s /c "cmd /c echo Transforming @path && \"%CommonProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Shared\TextTemplating\1.2\TextTransform.exe\" @file"
then it works perfectly.
In order to debug this, I created a simple command-line program called debugargs
which simply prints the number of arguments it receives and their values. Then some experimentation shows that the first form of directly passing the command to forfiles
causes the first argument to be swallowed. E.g.
forfiles /m "*.tt" /s /c "debugargs.exe 1 2 3"
gives output
2 arguments supplied
#1: 2
#2: 3
The documentation I've been able to find is quite sparse, and I don't see any mention of this as a possibility. Is it just an obscure bug, or am I missing something?
Upvotes: 3
Views: 2373
Reputation: 189
I've been struggling with this as well. The work-around I've found is to just add an extra space between the command and first argument! So where I was trying to do:
FORFILES /s /m *.dll /c "python \"c:\path\to\script.py\" -t arg1 etc"
python was trying to find file "arg1" to execute, but if I just change it to:
FORFILES /s /m *.dll /c "python \"c:\path\to\script.py\" -t arg1 etc"
this actually works!
Upvotes: 0
Reputation: 5086
This appears to be a bug in the way forfiles
invokes .exe
s. On a hunch I extended my debugargs
program to print the full command line.
X:\MyProject>forfiles /m "*.tt" /s /c "debugargs.exe 1 2 @file"
2 arguments supplied
#1: 2
#2: Urls.tt
Full command line: 1 2 "Urls.tt"
So the most appropriate workaround would be to double the executable name:
forfiles /m "*.tt" /s /c "debugargs.exe debugargs.exe 1 2 @file"
The alternative workaround is to invoke with cmd /c
. However, note here that if you need to quote the executable's path (e.g. because it contains a space), you'll need an extra workaround of prepending @
:
forfiles /m "*.tt" /s /c "cmd /c @\"debugargs.exe\" 1 2 @file"
Upvotes: 3
Reputation: 24585
I reproduced the behavior in forfiles as well. You can work around by using cmd /c before the command, or you could transition to PowerShell, where the equivalent command would be something like this (not tested):
get-childitem . -filter "*.tt" -recurse | foreach-object {
& "${ENV:CommonProgramFiles(x86)}\Microsoft Shared\TextTemplating\1.2\TextTransform.exe" "`"$($_.Name)`""
}
Bill
Upvotes: 0