Adobe AIR NativeProcess fails with spaces in arguments? - air

Question

I have a problem running the NativeProcess if I put spaces in the arguments
if (Capabilities.os.toLowerCase().indexOf("win") > -1)
{
fPath = "C:\\Windows\\System32\\cmd.exe";
args.push("/c");
args.push(scriptDir.resolvePath("helloworld.bat").nativePath);
}
file = new File(fPath);
var nativeProcessStartupInfo:NativeProcessStartupInfo = new NativeProcessStartupInfo();
nativeProcessStartupInfo.executable = file;
args.push("blah");
nativeProcessStartupInfo.arguments = args;
process = new NativeProcess();
process.start(nativeProcessStartupInfo);
in the above code, if I use
args.push("blah") everything works fine
if I use
args.push("blah blah") the program breaks as if the file wasn't found.
Seems like I'm not the only one:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/flexcoders/message/159521
As one of the users their pointed out, it really seems like an awful limitation by a cutting edge SDK of 21st century. Even Alex Harui didn't have the answer there and he's known to workaround every Adobe bug:)
Any ideas?

Answer 1

I am using AIR 2.6 SDK in JavaScript like this, and it is working fine even for spaces.
please check your code with this one.
var file = air.File.applicationDirectory;
file = file.resolvePath("apps");
if (air.Capabilities.os.toLowerCase().indexOf("win") > -1)
{
file = file.resolvePath(appFile);
}
var nativeProcessStartupInfo = new air.NativeProcessStartupInfo();
nativeProcessStartupInfo.executable = file;
var args =new air.Vector["<String>"]();
for(i=0; i<arguments.length; i++)
args.push(arguments[i]);
nativeProcessStartupInfo.arguments = args;
process = new air.NativeProcess();
process.addEventListener(air.ProgressEvent.STANDARD_OUTPUT_DATA, onOutputData);
process.addEventListener(air.ProgressEvent.STANDARD_INPUT_PROGRESS, inputProgressListener);
process.start(nativeProcessStartupInfo);

Answer 2

To expand on this: The reason that this works (see post above):
var args =new air.Vector["<String>"]();
for(i=0; i<arguments.length; i++)
args.push(arguments[i]);
nativeProcessStartupInfo.arguments = args;
is that air expects that the arguments being passed to the nativeProcess are delimited by spaces. It chokes if you pass "C:\folder with spaces\myfile.doc" (and BTW for AIR a file path for windows needs to be "C:\\folder with spaces\\myfile.doc") you would need to do this:
args.push("C:\\folder");
args.push("with");
args.push("spaces\\myfile.doc");
Hence, something like this works:
var processArgs = new air.Vector["<String>"]();
var path = "C:\\folder with spaces\\myfile.doc"
var args = path.split(" ")
for (var i=0; i<args.length; i++) {
processArgs.push(args[i]);
};

Answer 3

UPDATE - SOLUTION
The string generated by the File object by either nativePath or resolvePath uses "\" for the path. Replace "\" with "/" and it works.
I'm having the same problem trying to call 7za.exe using NativeProcess. If you try to access various windows directories the whole thing fails horribly. Even trying to run command.exe and calling a batch file fails because you still have to try to pass a path with spaces through "arguments" on the NativeProcessStartupInfo object.
I've spent the better part of a day trying to get this to work and it will not work. Whatever happens to spaces in "arguments" totally destroys the path.
Example 7za.exe from command line:
7za.exe a MyZip.7z "D:\docs\My Games\Some Game Title\Maps\The Map.map"
This works fine. Now try that with Native Process in AIR. The AIR arguments sanitizer is FUBAR.
I have tried countless ways to put in arguments and it just fails. Interesting I can get it to spit out a zip file but with no content in the zip. I figure this is due to the first argument set finally working but then failing for the path argument.
For example:
processArgs[0] = 'a';
processArgs[1] = 'D:\apps\flash builder 4.5\project1\bin-debug\MyZip.7z';
processArgs[2] = 'D:\docs\My Games\Some Game Title\Maps\The Map.map';
For some reason this spits out a zip file named: bin-debugMyZip.7z But the zip is empty.
Whatever AIR is doing it is fraking up path strings. I've tried adding quotes around those paths in various ways. Nothing works.
I thought I could fall back on calling a batch file from this example:
http://technodesk.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/air-2-0-native-process-batch-file/
But it fails as well because it still requires the path to be passed through arguments.
Anyone have any luck calling 7z or dealing with full paths in the NativeProcess? All these little happy tutorials don't deal with real windows folder structure.

Answer 4

Solution that works for me - set path_with_space as "nativeProcessStartupInfo.workingDirectory" property. See example below:
public function openPdf(pathToPdf:String):void
}
var nativeProcessStartupInfo:NativeProcessStartupInfo = new NativeProcessStartupInfo();
var file:File = File.applicationDirectory.resolvePath("C:\\Windows\\System32\\cmd.exe");
nativeProcessStartupInfo.executable = file;
if (Capabilities.os.toLowerCase().indexOf("win") > -1)
{
nativeProcessStartupInfo.workingDirectory = File.applicationDirectory.resolvePath(pathToPdf).parent;
var processArgs:Vector.<String> = new Vector.<String>();
processArgs[0] = "/k";
processArgs[1] = "start";
processArgs[2] = "test.pdf";
nativeProcessStartupInfo.arguments = processArgs;
process = new NativeProcess();
process.start(nativeProcessStartupInfo);
process.addEventListener(ProgressEvent.STANDARD_OUTPUT_DATA, onOutputData);
}

Answer 5

args.push( '"blah blah"' );
Command line after all supports spaces if they are nested whithin "".
So if lets say you have a file argument :
'test/folder with space/blah'
Convert it to the following
'test/"folder with space"/blah'
Optionally use a filter:
I once had a problem like this in AIR, i just simply filter the text before i push it into the array. My refrence use CASA lib though
import org.casalib.util.ArrayUtil;
http://casalib.org/
/**
* Filters a string input for 'safe handling', and returns it
**/
public function stringFilter(inString:String, addPermitArr:Array = null, permitedArr:Array = null):String {
var sourceArr:Array = inString.split(''); //Splits the string input up
var outArr:Array = new Array();
if(permitedArr == null) {
permitedArr = ("abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890" as String).split('');
}
if( addPermitArr != null ) {
permitedArr = permitedArr.concat( addPermitArr );
}
for(var i:int = 0; i < sourceArr.length; i++) {
if( ArrayUtil.contains( permitedArr, sourceArr[i] ) != 0 ) { //it is allowed
outArr.push( sourceArr[i] );
}
}
return (outArr.join('') as String);
}
And just filter it via
args.push( stringFilter( 'blah blah', new Array('.') ) );
Besides, it is really bad practice to use spaces in file names / arguments, use '_' instead. This seems to be originating from linux though. (The question of spaces in file names)

Answer 6

This works for me on Windws7:
var Xargs:Array = String("/C#echo#a trully hacky way to do this :)#>#C:\\Users\\Benjo\\AppData\\Roaming\\com.eblagajna.eBlagajna.POS\\Local Store\\a.a").split("#");
var args:Vector.<String> = new Vector.<String>();
for (var i:int=0; i<Xargs.length; i++) {
trace("Pushing: "+Xargs[i]);
args.push(Xargs[i]);
};
NPI.arguments = args;

Answer 7

If your application path or parameter contains spaces, make sure to wrap it in quotes. For example path of the application has spaces C:\Program Files (x86)\Camera\Camera.exe use quotes like:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Camera\Camera.exe"