Verbatim values are parsed as options (when they shouldn't be)

[ericnewton76]

Issue by cdmihai
Friday Aug 18, 2017 at 23:32 GMT
Originally opened as gsscoder/commandline#470

---

Given an options class with an option of type string:

    class Options
    {
        [Option('c', "command", HelpText = "command")]
        public string Command { get; set; }
    }

    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var result = Parser.Default.ParseArguments<Options>(args);

            result
                .WithParsed<Options>(
                    o =>
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine($"{o.Command}");
                    })
                .WithNotParsed(
                    e =>
                    {
                        Environment.Exit(1);
                    });
        }
    }

I would expect multi word values surrounded by quotes to be treated verbatim as a value for the string option.

Instead, CommandLineParser may end up parsing the verbatim string when it shouldn't:

MeasureCommand.exe -c "-a -e"
MeasureCommand 1.0.0
Copyright (C) 2017 MeasureCommand

ERROR(S):
  Option 'a' is unknown.

  -c, --command    command

  --help           Display this help screen.

  --version        Display version information.


MeasureCommand.exe -c "-c -a"
MeasureCommand 1.0.0
Copyright (C) 2017 MeasureCommand

ERROR(S):
  Option 'c, command' is defined multiple times.

  -c, --command    command

  --help           Display this help screen.

  --version        Display version information.


MeasureCommand.exe -c " -c -a"
c=[ -c -a]

MeasureCommand.exe -c "foo -c -a"
c=[foo -c -a]

[wexman]

I have the same problem. I want to specify parameters to my exe that are to be passed on to another .exe. For example:

starter.exe SomeOtherExe -f "this is to=be -unparsed"

[wexman]

Just found out that it works - kind of - when using a blank after the opening quotes, for example

starter.exe SomeOtherExe -f " this is to=be -unparsed"

(the difference will probably be hard to notice). Only downside is that the resulting string option will include the leading blank, but that should be handable.

[wexman]

Now I still need to find out how (if at all) to escape quotes when needing to pass on these...

[moh-hassan]

This is not a bug, it's how CMD handle quotation marks and process commandline to get string[] args.
use triple quote like:

              MeasureCommand.exe -c """-a -e"""

in that case "-a -c" will be passed as one string to the Parser.

[RobThree]

I'm trying to build a string:

grep {options}

So I'm trying mycommand.exe -g "-i foo" to get grep -i foo. I just don't get this to work; even when I try the suggested triple quotes: mycommand.exe -g """-i foo""" results in grep "-i foo", but I don't want the quotes. I could trim the quotes but then the problem is that I want to be able to quote values too: grep -i "some thing foo" for example. I... just don't see how?