Space in path of imagebuilder folder causes make to fail

For Developers
1

when I put imagebuilder in a folder that has space in its path (on linux) the make command prints error that it cant find files.

can this be fixed or it is impossible?

2

Absolutely

3

Presumably the above means it is absolutely impossible to fix. As to the issue, use the escape char?

4

was that sarcasm?

5

Certainly not wit.

6

What do you think ?

Spaces in folder names is a bad idea.

7

oh.
thank you for clarification.
I was gonna ask how windows users cope with the issue as windows user normal path has spaces in them then I remember that that the dev stuff happens on linux.

8

it was just really weird that I didn't get this issue (or maybe I have or forgot) before with many years of linux stuff.

maybe I always used space free paths.

9

https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-developer/toolchain/wsl dunno if this is what you're using..

10

been windows free for more than 15 years.

1 Like
11

Yes.
Rename the folder(s) with spaces in the name.

This is an example of what happens if you have spaces in a folder name:

root@meshnode-8ecb:/tmp/stuff# 
root@meshnode-8ecb:/tmp/stuff# mkdir "more stuff"
root@meshnode-8ecb:/tmp/stuff# ll
drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root            60 Feb  7 21:45 ./
drwxrwxrwt   19 root     root           480 Feb  7 21:46 ../
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root            40 Feb  7 21:45 more stuff/
root@meshnode-8ecb:/tmp/stuff# 
root@meshnode-8ecb:/tmp/stuff# cd more stuff
-ash: cd: can't cd to more: No such file or directory
root@meshnode-8ecb:/tmp/stuff# 
root@meshnode-8ecb:/tmp/stuff# cd "more stuff"
root@meshnode-8ecb:/tmp/stuff/more stuff#

This is normal parsing done by the shell (bash, or in my example, ash).
Parsing stops at a space unless the string is enclosed by quotes.

12

I meant more like this:

user@laptop:/home/user/New Folder/openwrt-imagebuilder-24.10.0-mvebu-cortexa9.Linux-x86_64  % make
rules.mk:12: Folder/openwrt-imagebuilder-24.10.0-mvebu-cortexa9.Linux-x86_64/include/debug.mk: No such file or directory
make: *** No rule to make target 'Folder/openwrt-imagebuilder-24.10.0-mvebu-cortexa9.Linux-x86_64/include/debug.mk'.  Stop.

kde by default creates new folders with names like "New Folder" with spaces.

13

kde windows emulator /s

If you want to talk GUIs - Gnome insists you add a folder name and does not generate a default. Sure you can create a name with a space in it, but expect potential issues using scripts.

Imagebuilder is NOT a GUI App, it is driven by shell scripts.

Rename your "New Folder" to "NewFolder" and all will be well.

3 Likes
14

Can it be fixed, probably - but not easily.
Will it be fixed, not that likely (as the efforts required far outpace the gains).

Should you decide to dive into it (and you will hit a lot of make and m4 fun along the way), there wouldn't be a reason not to merge your hypothetical patches, but this is a case of 'if it hurts, don't do it'.

1 Like