Adding backslash escapes to find.command

[Chris Angelico]

I have search-across-files done with this:

find.command=git -C "$(find.directory)" grep -n "$(find.what)" -- "$(find.files)"

This works for everything that doesn't include a double quote. Is there a way to request that find.what be backslash escaped before incorporating it into the command?

ChrisA / Rosuav

[scintillaDotOrg]

ros...@gmail.com:

I have search-across-files done with this:

find.command=git -C "$(find.directory)" grep -n "$(find.what)" -- "$(find.files)"

There is a  

This works for everything that doesn't include a double quote. Is there a way to request that find.what be backslash escaped before incorporating it into the command?

While there is a $(escape ...) function, it isn't applied to find.command and it isn't well tested.

This is an area that is platform dependent so it helps to reveal your OS.

Neil

[Chris Angelico]

On Saturday, 10 May 2025 at 09:25:40 UTC+10 scintillaDotOrg wrote:

This is an area that is platform dependent so it helps to reveal your OS.

I'm on Linux (GTK). It's probably not relevant to this question, but I'm using a patched version of gtk+.

ChrisA

[scintillaDotOrg]

ChrisA,

While it looks like there is a single form of variable expansion in SciTE, there are actually two with separate implementations: variables that depend on a file name and variables that don't. This is most obvious when there is an explicit wild card before the '=' in the properties file like

command.go.*.vala=./$(FileName)

but it also occurs indirectly when a variable used in a definition is file name dependent. File-name-dependent variables do not process calls like "escape" which are processed for other variables.

For file-name-dependent variables, "props.GetNewExpandString" is commonly called but for other variables, different methods are called like "props.GetExpandedString".

You could try changing the implementation of "find.command" in gtk/SciTEGTK.cxx to allow calling "escape" by switching calls although this may have unexpected consequences. Then set find.command to something like

find.command=git -C "$(find.directory)" grep -n "$(escape find.what)" -- "$(find.files)"

Neil

[Chris Angelico]

On Sun, 11 May 2025 at 11:05, scintillaDotOrg <scintil...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ChrisA,
>
> While it looks like there is a single form of variable expansion in SciTE, there are actually two with separate implementations: variables that depend on a file name and variables that don't. This is most obvious when there is an explicit wild card before the '=' in the properties file like
> command.go.*.vala=./$(FileName)
> but it also occurs indirectly when a variable used in a definition is file name dependent. File-name-dependent variables do not process calls like "escape" which are processed for other variables.
>
> For file-name-dependent variables, "props.GetNewExpandString" is commonly called but for other variables, different methods are called like "props.GetExpandedString".
>

Interesting. I'm not sure if the difference matters here, as the part
I'm looking at is the non-file-dependent one, right?

> You could try changing the implementation of "find.command" in gtk/SciTEGTK.cxx to allow calling "escape" by switching calls although this may have unexpected consequences. Then set find.command to something like
>
> find.command=git -C "$(find.directory)" grep -n "$(escape find.what)" -- "$(find.files)"
>

I had a look at this previously; this is SciTEGTK::FindInFilesCmd in
SciTEGTK.cxx. If the find command is blank, a command is constructed
that calls on the SciTE executable in grep mode, and notably, it
appends Slash(props.GetString("find.what"), true) to get the search
string. Is that the same as what $(escape ...) would do?

ChrisA

[scintillaDotOrg]

ChrisA:

I'm looking at is the non-file-dependent one, right?

No, find.command for GTK is currently implemented with GetNewExpandString. It's likely this was done as it is a command and most commands can be differentiated by file type although find.command does not currently allow a pattern like find.command.*.c.

I had a look at this previously; this is SciTEGTK::FindInFilesCmd in
SciTEGTK.cxx. If the find command is blank, a command is constructed
that calls on the SciTE executable in grep mode, and notably, it
appends Slash(props.GetString("find.what"), true) to get the search
string. Is that the same as what $(escape ...) would do?

Its similar but $(escape ...) uses ShellEscape, not Slash which is more oriented towards making control characters visible and less towards avoiding shell features. A difficulty here is that a different set of escapes is needed based on context, such as the OS; the command language being executed; and whether the value is inside quotes.

Neil

[Chris Angelico]

Ah. Confusing.

To be completely honest, what I *actually* want here is a way to
specify an array of arguments, rather than a shell-like command line.
But that probably wouldn't be easy, so for the moment, I'm happy with
escaping the quotes properly :)

Is there prior art anywhere? A place where user data gets added to a
command, and has to remain as a single argument?

ChrisA

[scintillaDotOrg]

ChrisA:

Is there prior art anywhere? A place where user data gets added to a
command, and has to remain as a single argument?

The FindInFilesCmd code you found is likely the closest example but it is incorrect as discussed in

https://groups.google.com/g/scite-interest/c/wueB4WHL_hk/m/XHpVb3KtAwAJ

Neil