I just dicovered a new issue in my code, when a file name contains one
open left curly bracket. Sure, a right bracket and other types of
brakets will case same issue.

For example, I have a file named "Test { .txt".

My code takes specific file names (only the tails, no directory) and
writes them to other files as strings.
Due to automatic char escaping happening in this process, the string
representing the file name will look like this: "Test\ \{\ 2.txt"

Which is fine.

Now my code will read those strings from the files and look them up, if
they still exists on the drive.
This is done by:

set path [file join $dir $tail]
set flag [file exists $path]

where "tail" is the variable containing the file name and "dir" is the
variable containing the directory whre the file is looked up.

The result of the "file join" command is: "C:/test2/Test/ /{/ 2.mpasm"

So all the excape chars are replaced by slash and I get the wrong file
path.

How can I avoid this issue?

Many thanks
Alexandru

On 5/23/2024 5:04 AM, alexandru wrote:
> For example, I have a file named "Test { .txt".
>
> My code takes specific file names (only the tails, no directory) and
> writes them to other files as strings.
> Due to automatic char escaping happening in this process, the string
> representing the file name will look like this: "Test\ \{\ 2.txt"
>

That is not correct. You can write the original string to a file and
read it back. It will look exactly the same.

% set data "Test { .txt"
Test { .txt

% set f [open c:/temp/filename.txt w]
file3c0b698
% puts $f $data
% close $f

% set f [open c:/temp/filename.txt r]
file3c0c058
% gets $f data2
11
% set data2
Test { .txt

On 5/23/24 04:04, alexandru wrote:
> I just dicovered a new issue in my code, when a file name contains one
> open left curly bracket. Sure, a right bracket and other types of
> brakets will case same issue.
>
> For example, I have a file named "Test { .txt".
>
> My code takes specific file names (only the tails, no directory) and
> writes them to other files as strings.
> Due to automatic char escaping happening in this process, the string
> representing the file name will look like this: "Test\ \{\ 2.txt"
>
> Which is fine.
>
> Now my code will read those strings from the files and look them up, if
> they still exists on the drive. This is done by:
>
> set path [file join $dir $tail]
> set flag [file exists $path]
>
> where "tail" is the variable containing the file name and "dir" is the
> variable containing the directory whre the file is looked up.
>
> The result of the "file join" command is: "C:/test2/Test/ /{/ 2.mpasm"

Can you please show us the following:

1) How you get the value into tail.
2) Any processing you to on tail before using it.
3) How you build and write the strings to the output file
4) How you read and process the strings in the input file

>
> So all the excape chars are replaced by slash and I get the wrong file
> path.
>
> How can I avoid this issue?
>

I'm almost certain at some point in one or more of those four steps you
switch between string and list operations.

To avoid it, treat strings as strings and list as lists.

Thanks! You answers got me thinking.
The issue was caused by writing data as a list, not as a string.
Problem solved.
Regards
Alexandru