GRASS_BATCH_JOB does not tolerate path with spaces

[marisn]

It is not possible to execute any GRASS_BATCH_JOB script form a path containing spaces.

Executing </home/maris/my way/gol_batch.sh>....
/bin/sh: /home/maris/my: No such file or directory

Quoting or shell escaping also doesn't work due to get_batch_job_from_env_variable checking file presence with os.access()

Workaround is to change line 1351 of grass.py to read:

proc = Popen('"' + batch_job + '"', shell=True)

As quoting of path is a delicate issue and there have been fights in other parts of GRASS with Popen, I'll better leave for more experienced GRASS Pythonists to decide if such workaround can be considered safe or more serious changes are needed.

[neteler]

Ticket retargeted after milestone closed

[neteler]

Is the suggested Python workaround a viable way to solve this ticket?

[martinl]

Ticket retargeted after milestone closed

[wenzeslaus]

For 7.2 and 7.4 (and maybe 7.6) the workarounds are:

1. Don't use GRASS_BATCH_JOB, use more powerful --exec instead.
2. Don't use spaces in the path. (And please let us know why do you prefer GRASS_BATCH_JOB rather over --exec.)

The spaces-in-path support can be implemented like this:

lib/init/grass.py

@@ -1511 +1511 @@
     batch_job_string = batch_job
     if not isinstance(batch_job, string_types):
         batch_job_string = ' '.join(batch_job)
     message(_("Executing <%s> ...") % batch_job_string)
     if isinstance(batch_job, string_types):
+        def quote(string):
+            if '"' in string:
+                return "'%s'" % batch_job
+            else:
+                return '"%s"' % batch_job
+        batch_job = quote(batch_job)
         proc = Popen(batch_job, shell=True)
     else:
         try:

Here shell=True (which is splitting the command using spaces) is used because it was used with GRASS_BATCH_JOB in the past. --exec is not using shell=True and allows spaces. Note that for 8.0 there might be changes to GRASS_BATCH_JOB in order to make it more aligned with --exec (see wiki:Grass8Planning).

Milestone is 7.6 or 7.8.

[marisn]

Replying to wenzeslaus:

And please let us know why do you prefer GRASS_BATCH_JOB rather over --exec.

To be honest – I do not remember what was the reason of using GRASS_BATCH_JOB and not --exec. May be just experimenting and stumbled on a bug (as it is a bug per se).

[wenzeslaus]

Replying to marisn:

Replying to wenzeslaus:

And please let us know why do you prefer GRASS_BATCH_JOB rather over --exec.

To be honest – I do not remember what was the reason of using GRASS_BATCH_JOB and not --exec. May be just experimenting and stumbled on a bug (as it is a bug per se).

Thanks, makes sense.

[wenzeslaus]

In 73261:

init: support spaces in path for GRASS_BATCH_JOB (see #3170)

[wenzeslaus]

Since there is --exec (see above) and spaces are unlikely here, backporting this is more trouble than it is worth. Let's have this more tested and shipped in (or around) 7.8. (Thanks for creating that milestone, BTW.)