Bizarre Cygwin/Explorer/paths problem half-solved

Tue Aug 5 02:46:00 GMT 2008

Hi Luke,
> I discovered today that if I try to run Windows Explorer from 
> the Cygwin command line, and give it a pathname with spaces, 
> it fails, but if I give the same command line to a cmd.exe 
> command line, Explorer works!
>> I.e. from Bash, explorer fails with an error message like 
> "The path '/e,c:\temp\space dir' does not exist or is not a 
> directory."
>> I've tried every quote combo I can. If I leave off the /e 
> option then it does open the directory, but without the side 
> pane (which is what you'd expect with the /e option omitted).
>
I've had this little gem in my .bash_profile for ages, and it's never failed
me regardless of the craziness of the path:
# Easy "Explorer here" command
x()
{
	if [ "${1}" = "" ];
	then
		XPATH=".";
	else
		XPATH="$(cygpath -w "${1}")";
	fi
	explorer $XPATH & disown %-
}
No tree view though. Lessee what happens if I add a "/e,":
# Easy "Explorer here" command with tree control on the left
x()
{
	if [ "${1}" = "" ];
	then
		# No parameter given, open Explorer in the current bash
directory.
		XPATH=".";
	else
		# Open the given path.
		XPATH="$(cygpath -w "${1}")";
	fi
	explorer /e,$XPATH & disown %-
}
...yep, that works like a charm too.
-- 
Gary R. Van Sickle
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