[RndTbl] (Simple?) Perl question

[Gilbert E. Detillieux]

That may actually be command-specific.  I don't remember details, but I 
have come across some Windows programs that didn't like the "/" being 
used where they wanted to see "\" instead.  I guess you could try it and 
see, but there's no guarantee it will always work that way, either...

Gilbert

On 12/12/2016 1:57 PM, Kevin McGregor wrote:
> Ugh. Even under Windows, doesn't
>
> $cmd =  "./psexec.exe //" . $server_name
>
> work the same? Is there any need to use backslashes here?
>
> On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 1:53 PM, Gilbert E. Detillieux
> <gedetil at cs.umanitoba.ca <mailto:gedetil at cs.umanitoba.ca>> wrote:
>
>     Yup, makes sense now...
>
>     After this line...
>
>     $cmd =  "./psexec.exe \\\\\\\\" . $server_name
>
>     ... the cmd variable will contain "./psexec.exe \\\\server" (4
>     backslashes.  On running this line...
>
>     my $output = `$cmd`
>
>     ... the shell will see "./psexec.exe \\\\server", and the command
>     will see (after shell quote processing) argv[1] set to "\\server".
>
>     Each level of "\" escape processing requires that you double the
>     number of "\" characters entered to get one through.  If you want to
>     end up with 2, after 2 levels, you need 8.
>
>     Gilbert
>
>     On 12/12/2016 1:43 PM, Kevin McGregor wrote:
>
>         I should add that this gets run immediately after via
>
>         my $output = `$cmd`
>
>         if that makes any difference.
>
>         On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 1:40 PM, Kevin McGregor
>         <kevin.a.mcgregor at gmail.com <mailto:kevin.a.mcgregor at gmail.com>
>         <mailto:kevin.a.mcgregor at gmail.com
>         <mailto:kevin.a.mcgregor at gmail.com>>> wrote:
>
>             I'm trying to decipher some Perl code which runs on a Windows
>             server, and I ran into this:
>
>             $cmd =  "./psexec.exe \\\\\\\\" . $server_name
>
>             I think the idea is to end up with
>
>             ./psexec.exe \\server
>
>             but WTF eight backslashes? Does that make any sense? If so, can
>             someone ELI5?
>
>             Kevin

-- 
Gilbert E. Detillieux		E-mail:	<gedetil at cs.umanitoba.ca>
Dept. of Computer Science	Web:	http://www.cs.umanitoba.ca/~gedetil/
University of Manitoba		Phone:	(204)474-8161
Winnipeg MB CANADA  R3T 2N2	Fax:	(204)474-7609