Double quotes in String varibale in .NET not coming

Question

I am trying to execute a cmd command from .NET and using the find cmd command as a pipe. But the find cmd command takes the value in string but when i am creating my string variable instead of taking double quotes it is replacing it with /"".

My string variable is "/c sc QUERY ServiceName | find \"START\"" and instead of passing "/c sc QUERY ServiceName | find "START"" this to cmd shell it is passing "/c sc QUERY ServiceName | find \"START\"" and my find command is failing.

Below is my .NET code

        string cmdstr = "/c sc QUERY ServiceName | find \"START\"";
        Process prc = new Process();
        ProcessStartInfo startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo();
        startInfo.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;
        startInfo.FileName = "cmd.exe";
        startInfo.Arguments = cmdstr;
        startInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
        startInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
        prc.StartInfo = startInfo;

        prc.Start();

        string result;
        result = prc.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
        prc.WaitForExit(10);

When i debug the code the cmdstr value does not contain double quotes but it contains the \"

Yes.. in debug, whilst hovering, it will show them. At runtime, once evaluated.. they won't be escaped. — Simon Whitehead, Aug 05 '13 at 10:49
Have you tried @"/c sc QUERY ServiceName | find ""START""";? from here http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1594600/how-to-easily-display-double-quotes-in-strings-in-c — Damon, Aug 05 '13 at 10:54
@Damon: That would only work in a verbatim string which the OP doesn't have. The escaping of his string is perfectly fine, the problem must be something else. — Daniel Hilgarth, Aug 05 '13 at 11:47
@Simon: Even i thought the same and it is such a simple thing but actually it not escaping the / and not taking the double quotes. Why i am saying this because my command works fine from cmd prompt but from .NET the find command text string is having \START\ which find is not able to find. — Nishant Shrivastava, Aug 05 '13 at 12:21
@Damon: I tried this also but during debugging the \ comes in the variable and the same gets passed to the cmd shell — Nishant Shrivastava, Aug 05 '13 at 12:34
I'm going to take a stab in the dark at this but didn't you intent to query "State" rather than "Start"? i.e string cmdstr = "/c sc QUERY ServiceName | find \"STATE\""; Just a guess though... I've tried sc QUERY Alerter | find "STATE" and I got something a return value. — Damon, Aug 05 '13 at 13:19

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited Aug 05 '13 at 13:15

Regarding your code:
It's fine and equivalent to manually open up cmd.exe and type sc QUERY ServiceName | find "START"
If i change ServiceName to W32Time and START to RUNNING, then I even get a non empty result (on my machine).

Regarding the debugger:
The debugger shows you the not evaluated version of the string (i.e. that what you actually type in the code).
If you want to see the string with evaluated escape-sequences, than you must use the "Text-Quickview"-Dialog (I don't know the exact title in English):
Open-Text-Quickview-Dialog-Button

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 05 '13 at 11:36

0

 string cmdstr = string.Empty;
 cmdstr = "/c sc QUERY ServiceName | find \"START\"";
 cmdstr = cmdstr.Replace("\"", "");

cmdstr ="/c sc QUERY ServiceName | find START";

-Hope it works .

answered Aug 05 '13 at 11:36

Suraj Singh

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What is that supposed to do? It replaces the double quotes with nothing, effectively removing them. – Daniel Hilgarth Aug 05 '13 at 11:46
@DanielHilgarth Have you tried it or just commented without testing it ??Is this code removing quotes???Please run it before concluding something ,and read question again the output which i provided is the desired output by questioner here . – Suraj Singh Aug 05 '13 at 11:51
Not correct. The line `cmdstr = cmdstr.Replace("\"", "");` removes all double quotes from `cmdstr`. Furthermore, the OP wants to pass `/c sc QUERY ServiceName | find "START"` as the parameter to `cmd.exe`. He doesn't want to pass `/c sc QUERY ServiceName | find START`. – Daniel Hilgarth Aug 05 '13 at 11:57

Double quotes in String varibale in .NET not coming

2 Answers2