[Gretl-devel] shell escape on Windows: issue with quited path strings

Hi, I'm seeing this phenomenon I don't quite understand when using a shell call from within a gretl script (with "!"). Without going into the details of what is actually called, the pattern of the following line works alright, with string substitution: ! "C:\mypath\some.exe" C:\morepath\input.csv > C\morepath\output.txt Notice that the exe path is already enclosed in quotes, although it's not really needed; it also works without them in this setup without embedded spaces. The following variants also work: ! C:\mypath\some.exe C:\morepath\input.csv > C\morepath\output.txt ! C:\mypath\some.exe "C:\morepath\input.csv" > "C\morepath\output.txt" However, when I enclose everything in quotes (to be more portable, in case the user name does contain a space) then it fails, i.e. the expected output files are not created! Like this: ! "C:\mypath\some.exe" "C:\morepath\input.csv" > "C\morepath\output.txt" I find this really puzzling - is something going wrong on the way from gretl to the Windows shell, or am I simply missing something? thanks sven