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c++commandsystemquotes
Christian Neverdal
Christian Neverdal

Reputation: 5385

With system() in C++ on Windows, why are two quotes required to invoke a program in another directory?

I have the find.exe program in my utils folder. This does not work:

system("\"utils/find.exe\"");

All I get is

'utils' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

However, for some reason this works:

system("\"\"utils/find.exe\"\"");

Echoing the single quoted string

system("echo \"utils/find.exe\"");

outputs

"utils/find.exe"

... so why do I need two quotes?

Upvotes: 4

Views: 1531

Answers (3)

Ferruccio
Ferruccio

Reputation: 100748

Even though you can use both / and \ as directory separators in Windows, the command processor will try to interpret anything starting with a / as a switch. Try this:

system("\"utils\\find.exe\"");

Upvotes: 0

user859749
user859749

Reputation:

I assume you're on windows because you're trying to execute an .exe file. So, instead of writting "utils/find.exe", try to write "utils\find.exe". The delimiting character on windows is '\', so it probably sees "utils" as a command since '/' is ignored.

Upvotes: 3

orip
orip

Reputation: 75577

Perhaps system() is passing your command line to the shell, e.g. cmd.exe, which also needs quoting?

Upvotes: 1

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