[Rd] system()/system2() using short paths of commands on Windows?

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On 30/10/2023 16:18, Yihui Xie wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> It may have been so for 20+ years but I just discovered today that system()
> would always try to use the short path of a command on Windows:
> https://github.com/wch/r-source/blob/635a67/src/gnuwin32/run.c#L141 If
> that's true, I wonder if it could provide an option to disable this
> behavior, because we recently ran into a case in which short paths wouldn't
> work. I wonder what the original motivation of using short paths was. If it
> was to avoid spaces in paths, wouldn't shQuote() work? Thanks!

No: system on Windows does not use a shell.

The 'original motivation' was to work reliably!  Back in the days of 
Windows 95 when many parts of Windows only supported 8+3 names.

> 
> Regards,
> Yihui
> 
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

Please do re-read the posting guide.  It has ' been so for 20+ years '.

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley using stats.ox.ac.uk
Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics, University of Oxford