Missing curly braces when calling echo in Git Bash on Windows

[carlzhc]

When command line contains curly braces, the braces are removed before passing it to command.

Babashka v1.12.208 REPL.
Use :repl/quit or :repl/exit to quit the REPL.
Clojure rocks, Bash reaches.

user=> (babashka.process/shell "echo @{U}")
@U

It seems the issue only happens in Windows 10, Linux is fine.

[borkdude]

I don't have echo installed on Windows when running bb from powershell nor in cmd.exe but by shelling out to bb itself I don't get a problem:

user=> (p/shell "bb" "-e" (pr-str '(println "@{U}")))
@{U}

I can reproduce this with Git bash on Windows:

user=> (p/shell "echo" "@{U}")
@U

but

this is the same:

user=> (p/shell "bb" "-e" (pr-str '(println "@{U}")))
@{U}

This also prints normally:

(p/shell "cmd" "/c" "echo" "@{U}")

So.. my suspicion is that there's something weird with Git Bash's echo, but not sure what.

[borkdude]

When I add escapes before the curlies I do get the desired output on Git bash:

(p/shell echo "@\\{U\\}")

[borkdude]

Here's another direct ProcessBuilder invocation using JVM Clojure:

borkdude@DESKTOP-JN2UNTV MINGW64 ~
$ clj
Clojure 1.12.0
user=> (doto (java.lang.ProcessBuilder. ["echo" "@{U}"])
  (.inheritIO)
  (.start))
#object[java.lang.ProcessBuilder 0x7918c7f8 "java.lang.ProcessBuilder@7918c7f8"]
                                                                               ]

user=> @U

This shows that this problem isn't specific to babashka.process. I'll turn this issue into a Discussion for the moment.

[borkdude]

Ah, note that the problem isn't even Java specific, it happens with Node.js too:

const { execFile } = require('child_process');

// Execute echo command with argument "@{U}" using execFile
execFile('echo', ['@{U}'], (error, stdout, stderr) => {
  if (error) {
    console.error(`Error: ${error.message}`);
    return;
  }
  
  if (stderr) {
    console.error(`stderr: ${stderr}`);
    return;
  }
  
  // Show the output directly
  console.log(stdout);
});

[lread]

I guess the msys2 echo is trying to handle argument shell-stuff, but maybe not doing so well at it: msys2/MSYS2-packages#522. This comment seems to match your symptom: msys2/MSYS2-packages#522 (comment)

[borkdude]

Thanks for finding this

[carlzhc]

However the git command with @{u} argument still has this issue.
Try this command: git rev-parse --abbrev @{u}
I got this in my MSYS console:

user=> (babashka.process/shell "git rev-parse --abbrev-ref @{u}")
@u
fatal: ambiguous argument '@u': unknown revision or path not in the working tree.
Use '--' to separate paths from revisions, like this:
'git <command> [<revision>...] -- [<file>...]'
clojure.lang.ExceptionInfo [at <repl>:2:1]

When running in console:

$ git rev-parse --abbrev-ref @{u}
origin/master

[borkdude]

Probably the git command is compiled with the same stuff that echo.exe etc are compiled with in MSYS2 and suffer from the same problem. Try shelling out in Java or Node.js to the same command, it probably exhibits the same problem, as a I tried to show above. This isn't a babashka.process problem but an MSYS2 problem. As the link @lread pointed to suggested, you can try setting MSYS=noglob which you can do like this in babashka.process:

(babashka.process/shell {:extra-env {"MSYS" "noglob"}} ...)