Re: Fixing Windows and DOS command line argument quoting

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 16:58:35 +0800
> From: Jason Rumney <jasonr@gnu.org>
> 
> On 25/04/2011 16:49, Daniel Colascione wrote:
> 
> > 1. we can have cmdproxy level-two-dequote the supplied command line
> > before giving it to CreateProcess, or
> >
> > 2. we can remove optimization described above and have cmdproxy always
> > run the command interpreter.
> >
> > I favor the second option: cmd starts very quickly, and we don't save
> > much time by bypassing it.
> 
> IIRC, this "optimisation" isn't about saving time, but about avoiding 
> limitations in cmd.exe where possible.

Indeed.  One such limitation (but not the only one) is the command
length limitation: cmd.exe supports only 8K, while CreateProcess can
support upto 32K (more if we ever move to using the Unicode
interfaces).

> Another possibility is to make the decision whether to use cmd.exe or 
> not based on the presence of "level 2" metacharacters rather than "level 1".

This is what I would prefer.  Daniel, is this feasible?