CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.js
Marco
Marco

Reputation: 5109

node child_process.spawn not working with spaces in path on windows

How to provide a path to child_process.spawn

For example the path:

c:\users\marco\my documents\project\someexecutable

The path is provided by the enduser from a configuration file.

var child_process = require('child_process');
var path = require('path');
var pathToExecute = path.join(options.toolsPath, 'mspec.exe');
child_process.spawn(pathToExecute, options.args);

Currently only the part after the space is used by child_process.spawn

I also tried by adding quotes arround the path like this:

var child_process = require('child_process');
var path = require('path');
var pathToExecute = path.join(options.toolsPath, 'mspec.exe');
child_process.spawn('"' + pathToExecute + '"', options.args);

However this results in a ENOENT error.

Upvotes: 17

Views: 11236

Answers (4)

Mike Twc
Mike Twc

Reputation: 2355

Escape space with \ too:

C:\\Program\ Files\\Common\ Files\\Oracle\\Java\\javapath\\java.exe

Upvotes: 0

Trevor
Trevor

Reputation: 555

As per https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/7367#issuecomment-229728704 one can use the { shell: true } option.

For example

const { spawn } = require('child_process');
const ls = spawn(process.env.comspec, ['/c', 'dir /b "C:\\users\\Trevor\\Documents\\Adobe Scripts"'],  { shell: true });

Will work.

Upvotes: 7

cmlndz
cmlndz

Reputation: 2357

The first parameter must be the command name, not the full path to the executable. There's an option called cwd to specify the working directory of the process, also you can make sure the executable is reachable adding it to your PATH variable (probably easier to do).

Also, the args array passed to spawn shouldn't contain empty elements.

You code should look something like this:

child_process.spawn('mspec.exe', options.args, {cwd: '...'});

Upvotes: 17

anvarik
anvarik

Reputation: 6487

I am using spawn frequently, the way I solved the problem is to use process.chdir. So if your path is c:\users\marco\my documents\project\someexecutable then you should do the following:

process.chdir('C:\\users\\marco\\my documents\\project');
child_process.spawn('./myBigFile.exe', options.args);

Note the double \s, that's how it worked for me.

Upvotes: 1

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