Escaping Switch Delimiter Used in Arguments

[nariman-haghighi]

Trying to run a silent install of java through Bootstrapper which uses this package:

bootstrapper.exe /get role-setup/jre-7u9-windows-x64.exe /lr $lr(tempInstallationDir) /sc $config(ConnectionString) /run $lr(tempInstallationDir)\jre-7u9-windows-x64.exe /args /s /L "%RoleRoot%\approot\java-install.log" /block

http://java.com/en/download/help/silent_install.xml

But can't seem to escape the args value of (/s /L "%RoleRoot%\approot\java-install.log")

Any suggestions?

[cbrianball]

I'm not sure what you mean by "escape". What value are you expecting from /L and what value are you actually getting when you use Args?

[nariman-haghighi]

Expecting the java switches passed in via /args to not be interpreted, just
passed on in raw form.

[cbrianball]

OK, so everything after /args needs to be one string value that you will then pass into another executable?

My first thought (without actually testing it myself) would be to have your command-line look like:
bootstrapper.exe .... /args "/s /L \"%RoleRoot%\approot\java-install.log\" /block"

I would expect that to cause your "args" property/field to then contain the value:
/s /L "%RoleRoot%\approot\java-install.log" /block

[nariman-haghighi]

Didn't seem to work. Reverted back to '-' as the switch delimiter to overcome this, would make for a good test case.

[cbrianball]

I think I see what the problem is, the first character in the literal is still "/". This would be a hack, but try:
bootstrapper.exe .... /args " /s /L \"%RoleRoot%\approot\java-install.log\" /block"

Note the space after the quote. Unfortunately I have no way of knowing that the "/s" was proceeded by a quote just by looking at string[] args. I could look at System.Environment.CommandLine and parse everything out manually, but then I'd need to know how the OS parses out the command line (escaping special characters and such) in order to duplicate that correctly, and at that point I feel like I am sort of just "reinventing the wheel".

I'm open to hearing arguments for additional reasons why it would be beneficial to write my own parser and not rely on the OS.