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When I used the command below [1] to set my configuration variable MONGODB_URI, it gives an error [2]. I am using Windows PowerShell.

[1] >> heroku config:set MONGODB_URI='mongodb+srv://myprojectname:<mypassword>@cluster0.rkitj.mongodb.net/<myusername>?retryWrites=true&w=majority'

[2] The system cannot find the file specified. 'w' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

Note: myprojectname, mypassword and myusername are placeholders for the actual value.

mklement0
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Kimley
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1 Answers1

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It looks like the heroku CLI entry point is a batch file, as implied by the wording of the error messages, which are cmd.exe's, not PowerShell's.

PowerShell doesn't take the special parsing needs of batch files (cmd.exe) into account when it synthesizes the actual command line to use behind the scenes, which involves re-quoting, using double quotes only, and only when PowerShell thinks quoting is needed.

In this case PowerShell does not double-quote (because the value contains no spaces), which breaks the batch-file invocation.

You have the following options:

  • You can use embedded quoting so as to ensure that the value part of your MONGODB_URI=... key-value pair is passed in double quotes; note the '"..."' quoting:

    heroku config:set MONGODB_URI='"mongodb+srv://myprojectname:<mypassword>@cluster0.rkitj.mongodb.net/<myusername>?retryWrites=true&w=majority"'
    • Caveat: This shouldn't work, and currently only works because PowerShell's passing of arguments to external program is fundamentally broken as of PowerShell 7.1 - see this answer. Should this ever get fixed, the above will break.

  • If your command line doesn't involve any PowerShell variables and expressions, you can use --%, the stop-parsing symbol, which, however, in general, has many limitations (see this answer); essentially, everything after --% is copied verbatim to the target command line, except for expanding cmd.exe-style environment-variable references (e.g., %USERNAME%):

    heroku config:set --% MONGODB_URI="mongodb+srv://myprojectname:<mypassword>@cluster0.rkitj.mongodb.net/<myusername>?retryWrites=true&w=majority"

  • If you're willing to install a module, you can use the ie function from the PSv3+ Native module (install with Install-Module Native from the PowerShell Gallery in PSv5+), which internally compensates for all of PowerShell's argument-passing and cmd.exe's argument-parsing quirks (it is implemented in a forward-compatible manner so that should PowerShell itself ever get fixed, the function will simply defer to PowerShell); that way, you can simply focus on meeting PowerShell's syntax requirements, and let ie handle the rest:

    # 'ie' prepended to an invocation that uses only PowerShell syntax
ie heroku config:set MONGODB_URI='mongodb+srv://myprojectname:<mypassword>@cluster0.rkitj.mongodb.net/<myusername>?retryWrites=true&w=majority'
mklement0
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