Is Windows really as stupid as it seems?

[yrieithydd]

I've just been converted to psftp as my ftp client. I'm trying to back up a file to pelican. It is at C:\\My Documents\Preprocessing\ Now I have a problem because of the space in My Documents. In the command prompt, I get an error saying 'too many parameters - Diamater\', in psftp itself it just tells me it can't find the directory. This is annoying. I just solved this for this backup by moving the file to the C:\\ (using My computer etc!) but that is an inelegant solution. Is Windows really so stupid as to have directories that the command prompt can't find because of the space? I did try %20 by analogy with URLs but it didn't work.

Oh and I need an appropriate icon for computer related queries. Any suggestions? I also need a cricket icon.

Comments

[atreic.livejournal.com]

Try 'C:...\My Documents\...' (or maybe "C:...\My Documents\...")

[yrieithydd.livejournal.com]

quotes work both for command prompt and for psftp!

[caliston.livejournal.com]

Or C:\MyDocu~1\... (if you have more than one name starting with those letters, insert ~2, ~3 instead). This kludge dates back to Windows 95 but I assume still works...

But quotes should work for putty (since it's sensible).

[numberland.livejournal.com]

I believe the problem is that linux (and hence the psftp client) doesn't allow spaces in file paths, but windows does, correct?

If so, the simple fix is just to run psftp from within the My Documents folder and make sure any sub folders/ file names you are using does not involve spaces.

[yrieithydd.livejournal.com]

But I can't get the command prompt to go into My Documents either so that's no help!

BTW is it possible to make command prompt list all the files in the current directory (and how does one find out how to use it properly. Typing help doesn't!

[numberland.livejournal.com]

I have a psftp program that I run directly, I leave it in the My documents folder and run it from there...

[caliston.livejournal.com]

Unix /does/ allow spaces, control characters and pretty much everything else in filenames. It's just that the shell has special methods for representing (escaping) characters that can't be entered directly or are ambiguous. But these don't apply if you aren't running the program under the shell.

But anyway, that's an aside. Double quotes should work (to correct what I said earlier).

[nlj21.livejournal.com]

Try putting the path in quotes.

[nlj21.livejournal.com]

(Oh. Just realised that was atreic's suggestion.)

[atreic.livejournal.com]

I can never remember whether it's single or double quotes though. Still, my inability to learn must mean the failure mode isn't bad :)