Escaping special characters in cmd

Question

I have a Windows .bat script in which I try to run a command with password in parameter. The password I want to be able to use is ~!@#$%^&*()_+|-=\][{}';:"/.>?,<.

From what I've read here, I should escape ^&|\<> with ^. From what I assume, I should escape " with \".

This gives me something like that:

runme.exe /password:"~!@#$%^^^&*()_+^|-=^\][{}';:\"/.^>?,^<"

But it doesn't work - my target app responds with logon failure.

How should I escape all these characters to be able to hardcode the password in my batch (ignoring the security issues by now)?

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1741546/how-to-input-special-character-in-cmd — Atara, Apr 24 '12 at 10:34
So you're suggesting `/password:~!@#$%^^^&*()_+^|-=\][{}';:"/.^>?,^<`? Nope, doesn't work. — NOtherDev, Apr 24 '12 at 10:38
Still no luck: `/password:~!@#$%%^^^&*()_+^|-=^\][{}';:"/.^>?,^<` — NOtherDev, Apr 24 '12 at 10:54
Just to record sake, I had to escape `;` with `^` otherwise it will term `;` as end of command. — Nikhil Agrawal, Mar 08 '18 at 07:29

score 17 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 24 '12 at 12:11

17

Double the quote in the password and make sure the complete password is enclosed in quotes as well:

runme.exe /password:"~!@#$%%^^^&*()_+^|-=\][{}';:""/.>?,<"

answered Apr 24 '12 at 12:11

Christian.K

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That worked: `/password:"~!@#$%%^&*()_+|-=\][{}';:""/.>?,<"` (no additional `^` inside the quotes). Thanks a lot! – NOtherDev Apr 24 '12 at 12:27
If you have % in your password - try %% instead. More here: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/escapechars.php – Paul Shiryaev Aug 07 '17 at 15:29

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 24 '12 at 10:59

1

Give this a try, but if runme.exe's argument parser requires quotes as string encapsulators for passwords, the it's not going to work. If you need to have a quote in your password, then runme.exe needs to provide a way to escape it!

runme.exe /password:~!@#$%%^^^&*()_+^|-=\][{}';:"/.>?,<

answered Apr 24 '12 at 10:59

jon

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Still no luck. What do you mean by providing a way to escape? I have no control over `runme.exe` unfortunately. Are you suggesting that `runme.exe` may not be able to support passwords with `"`? – NOtherDev Apr 24 '12 at 12:01

Escaping special characters in cmd

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