Char loss in argument string when call excutables with system in C++

Question

I use system to call an external excutable file with argument list.

string all = (excuteablePath + " " + inputDir + " " + outputDir + " " + spacing);
system(all.c_str());

The value of string all shown in IDE or with cout is

.\sample.exe .\孙夏^4735\UR7\ .\孙夏^4735\UR7.stl 0.3 0.3 0.3

but the output from the executable is

.\sample.exe .\孙夏4735\UR7\ .\孙夏4735\UR7.stl 0.3 0.3 0.3

The character ^ disappered.

Why is this happened and how may I solve this?

This may be related to the fact that `^` is a special escape character for the Windows console. See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20342828/what-does-symbol-means-in-batch-script — François Andrieux, Mar 29 '18 at 14:50

Barmak Shemirani · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-01T01:07:46.517

Ideally you should use wide string characters and CreateProcess

std::wstring wstr =
    L".\\sample.exe .\\孙夏^4735\\UR7\\ .\\孙夏^4735\\UR7.stl 0.3 0.3 0.3";
STARTUPINFOW si = { sizeof(si) };
PROCESS_INFORMATION pi;
CreateProcessW(0, &wstr[0], NULL, NULL, TRUE, NORMAL_PRIORITY_CLASS, NULL, NULL, &si, &pi);

Note the W after STARTUPINFO and CreateProcess

If you are forced to use ANSI code page then use the ANSI version of CreateProcess

std::string str =
    ".\\sample.exe .\\孙夏^4735\\UR7\\ .\\孙夏^4735\\UR7.stl 0.3 0.3 0.3";
STARTUPINFOA si = { sizeof(si) };
PROCESS_INFORMATION pi;
CreateProcessA(0, &str[0], NULL, NULL, TRUE, NORMAL_PRIORITY_CLASS, NULL, NULL, &si, &pi);

Yes this exactly fix my problem, thank you. But I finally decided to remove all `^` in my string. — Summer Sun, Apr 01 '18 at 12:02

Char loss in argument string when call excutables with system in C++

1 Answers1