templating icon indicating copy to clipboard operation
templating copied to clipboard
verified publisher icon dotnet

Escaped quotes in symbol parameter values lost or cause errors

Open patridge opened this issue 7 years ago • 7 comments

When I try to pass quotation marks to a parameter from the command line, I either get an error or the produced content will not contain quotation marks.

Full details can be found in my sample repo notes, but here are some examples.

dotnet new repro-quotes-spaces --someparameter="something needing `"escaped quotes`" in it."

Results in this error:

Invalid input switch:
  quotes in it.

If I remove the space within the quoted sub-string, there is no error, but the content it produces doesn't have any quotation marks either.

dotnet new repro-quotes-spaces --someparameter="something needing `"escapedquotes`" (without spaces) in it."

Results in this text missing the expected quotes:

something needing escapedquotes (without spaces) in it.

Environment

  • Windows 10 Pro 1803 and macOS v10.13.6 (High Sierra)
  • .NET Core SDK: v2.1.500 (also tested on v2.1.302)
  • PowerShell Core: v6.1.0

Sample repro

Here is a repo containing a sample and my notes so far (Notes direct link):

https://github.com/patridge/repro-DotnetNewTemplateParameterQuotes

patridge avatar Nov 14 '18 23:11 patridge

I can file it in a separate issue since it's a different OS, but there is a different issue for \" on macOS with .NET Core v2.1.500. This case works, but produces output that is missing multiple other characters, very similar to #1704.

dotnet new repro-quotes-spaces --someparameter="something needing \"escaped quotes\" in it."

Unexpected substitution:

omething needing "escaped quotes" in it

patridge avatar Nov 15 '18 04:11 patridge

Just confirmed the same errors and unexpected outputs on macOS running the same .NET Core and PowerShell Core versions. Editing the initial issue to include that.

The issue seems totally different in Bash, though, as mentioned in the prior comment.

patridge avatar Nov 15 '18 15:11 patridge

Hi @patridge, This issue will be resolved once we switch to the new command line parser which is planned for .NET 6. You can track the work here #2191.

bekir-ozturk avatar May 19 '21 11:05 bekir-ozturk

@GangWang01 could you please check if it is fixed? It should be as we already moved to new parser. Thank you

vlada-shubina avatar Jul 14 '22 09:07 vlada-shubina

@vlada-shubina, @GangWang01 Not sure if I should be on something newer, but I just tested this on dotnet v6.0.302 and it is no longer throwing an error, but it also doesn't work correctly with the escaped characters. The resulting parameter value is never the full, escaped string, and the resulting file only part of the parameter value.

  • For PowerShell-escaped backtick characters
    • dotnet new repro-quotes-spaces --someparameter="something needing "escaped quotes" in it."
    • Resulting variable value: something needing escaped
  • For backslash-escaped characters
    • dotnet new repro-quotes-spaces --someparameter="something needing \"escaped quotes\" in it."
    • Resulting variable value: something needing \escaped
  • For double-quote characters
    • dotnet new repro-quotes-spaces --someparameter="something needing ""escaped quotes"" in it."
    • Resulting variable value: something needing escaped
  • For quotes within apostrophes
    • dotnet new repro-quotes-spaces --someparameter='something needing "escaped quotes" in it.'
    • Resulting variable value: something needing escaped

patridge avatar Jul 22 '22 20:07 patridge

@patridge the fix is potentially available in .NET 7, unfortunately it won't be backported to .NET 6.

vlada-shubina avatar Jul 25 '22 08:07 vlada-shubina

@patridge @vlada-shubina It is not reproduced with .NET 7.0.100-preview.6.22352.1.

With Command Prompt on Windows, \ or " can escape quotation mark well. For PowerShell it should be \ or " plus ` together to escape quotation mark, like \`" or `"`" will be escaped as quotation mark. For other escape characters, they could not escape correctly, but result in being parsed to be multiple arguments passed to the application's entry Main method, then cause the error "Invalid option".

Here are the details using different escape characters with/without space inside.

Command prompt

Input Escape as Expected? Received Parsed Argument
--someparameter="something needing `"escaped quotes`" in it." No --someparameter=something needing `escaped

quotes` in it.
--someparameter="something needing `"escapedquotes`" (without spaces) in it." No --someparameter=something needing `escapedquotes` (without spaces) in it.
--someparameter="something needing \"escaped quotes\" in it." Yes --someparameter=something needing "escaped quotes" in it.
--someparameter="something needing \"escapedquotes\" (without spaces) in it." Yes --someparameter=something needing "escapedquotes" (without spaces) in it.
--someparameter="something needing ""escaped quotes"" in it." Yes --someparameter=something needing "escaped quotes" in it.
--someparameter="something needing ""escapedquotes"" (without spaces) in it." Yes --someparameter=something needing "escapedquotes" (without spaces) in it.
--someparameter='something needing "escaped quotes" in it.' No --someparameter='something

needing

escaped quotes

in

it.'

PowerShell 7

Input Escape as Expected? Received Parsed Argument
--someparameter="something needing `"escaped quotes`" in it." No --someparameter=something needing escaped

quotes in it.
--someparameter="something needing `"escapedquotes`" (without spaces) in it." No --someparameter=something needing escapedquotes (without spaces) in it.
--someparameter="something needing \"escaped quotes\" in it." No --someparameter=something needing \escaped

quotes\ in it.
--someparameter="something needing \"escapedquotes\" (without spaces) in it." No --someparameter=something needing \escapedquotes\ (without spaces) in it.
--someparameter="something needing ""escaped quotes"" in it." No --someparameter=something needing escaped

quotes in it.
--someparameter="something needing ""escapedquotes"" (without spaces) in it." No --someparameter=something needing escapedquotes (without spaces) in it.
--someparameter='something needing "escaped quotes" in it.' No --someparameter=something needing escaped

quotes in it.
--someparameter="something needing \`"escaped quotes\`" in it." Yes --someparameter=something needing "escaped quotes" in it.
--someparameter="something needing \`"escapedquotes\`" (without spaces) in it." Yes --someparameter=something needing "escapedquotes" (without spaces) in it.
--someparameter="something needing `"`"escaped quotes`"`" in it." Yes --someparameter=something needing "escaped quotes" in it.
--someparameter="something needing `"`"escapedquotes`"`" (without spaces) in it." Yes --someparameter=something needing "escapedquotes" (without spaces) in it.

GangWang01 avatar Jul 28 '22 16:07 GangWang01

Closing, this has been fixed in .NET 7. Correct syntax follows:

Command prompt

--someparameter="something needing \"escaped quotes\" in it." --someparameter="something needing ""escaped quotes"" in it."

PowerShell 7

--someparameter="something needing \`"escaped quotes\`" in it." --someparameter="something needing `"`"escaped quotes`"`" in it."

vlada-shubina avatar Aug 16 '22 09:08 vlada-shubina