Date:         Sun, 19 Dec 2010 17:19:15 -0500
Reply-To:     Tom Abernathy <tom.abernathy@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Tom Abernathy <tom.abernathy@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: X command and paths containing blanks

Your filenames have embedded spaces in them. So for Windows (DOS) to
determine what part of your command string is the command and what part are
the parameters you need to enclose your file references in quotes.

To generate a double quote (") inside of string quoted with double quotes
you just have to use two double quote characters.  Same works with single
quote (').

So this command:
X """C:\dir 1\program"" ""parameter one"" ""parameter two""";
Will send this command to DOS:
"C:\dir 1\program" "parameter one" "parameter two"

The QUOTE function is a useful way to deal with this:

%let command=C:\temp\Test Programs\test_xcopy.bat
x %sysfunc(quote(
%sysfunc(quote(&command)) %sysfunc(quote(&param1)) %sysfunc(quote(&param2))
));

You could also just rename your directories to not have embedded spaces in
them and then DOS will not need the extra quotes.

- Tom

On Sun, 19 Dec 2010 10:49:58 -0500, Sune Christiansen <sune@LUNDBECK.COM>
wrote:

>Hi again
>
>After a considerable number of try-and-error I found that the following
>works (maybe not the most pretty code):
>
>The SAS code:
>%let param1=C:\temp\Test Programs\Input\Test_Copy.txt;
>%let param2=C:\temp\Test Programs\Output\;
>
>options xwait;
>
>X " %str(%" %"C:\temp\Test Programs\test_xcopy.bat%" %"C:\temp\Test
>Programs\Input\Test_Copy.txt%" %"C:\temp\Test Programs\Output\%" %") ";
>
>The .bat file:
>xcopy %1 %2
>
>Thanks for the suggestions,
>Sune