Windows/quotes/"start" (was Re: Having problem getting quotation marks with SYSTEM)

[Kenneth Brody]

On 11/15/2011 11:28 AM, Boaz Bezborodko wrote:
[...]
> When I try to open the pdf file with a Windows "Start [filename]" it doesn't
> work with a space and doesn't work with quotation marks.

This is a "design flaw" (IMHO) in the "start" command.  If the first 
parameter starts with a quote, then it is taken as the title to give the 
window.  (There is no flag, such as "/title:", to specify this.  It's based 
purely on the existence of that quote.)

Therefore, this doesn't work as one might expect:

     start "c:\path\to\filename with spaces.ext"

Rather than opening the specified file, you will get a new command window, 
with the given string as the window title.

I learned long ago to include a null quoted string:

     start "" "c:\path\to\filename with spaces.ext"

> I'm sure there a simple edit I can use to strip out spaces, but I just get
> my head around it right now.
>
> (I can get the edit syntax if I spend a bunch of time to grok it, but I then
> forget it until a few years later when I might need it again.)

-- 
Kenneth Brody