_stringify handles quoted strings incorrectly

[gauchj]

BPO	33974
Nosy	@serhiy-storchaka, @miss-islington, @gauchj
PRs	bpo-33974: Fix passing special characters to ttk widgets. #7986 [3.7] bpo-33974: Fix passing special characters to ttk widgets. (GH-7986) #8018 [3.6] bpo-33974: Fix passing special characters to ttk widgets. (GH-7986) #8019 [2.7] bpo-33974: Fix passing special characters to ttk widgets. (GH-7986) #8021
Files	0001-improve-escaping-of-quoted-strings.patch

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

Show more details

GitHub fields:

assignee = 'https://github.com/serhiy-storchaka'
closed_at = <Date 2018-06-30.10:44:39.187>
created_at = <Date 2018-06-26.18:52:55.319>
labels = ['3.7', '3.8', 'type-bug', 'expert-tkinter']
title = '_stringify handles quoted strings incorrectly'
updated_at = <Date 2018-06-30.10:44:39.187>
user = 'https://github.com/gauchj'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2018-06-30.10:44:39.187>
actor = 'serhiy.storchaka'
assignee = 'serhiy.storchaka'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2018-06-30.10:44:39.187>
closer = 'serhiy.storchaka'
components = ['Tkinter']
creation = <Date 2018-06-26.18:52:55.319>
creator = 'gauchj'
dependencies = []
files = ['47654']
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 33974
keywords = ['patch']
message_count = 8.0
messages = ['320508', '320513', '320598', '320663', '320753', '320756', '320757', '320769']
nosy_count = 3.0
nosy_names = ['serhiy.storchaka', 'miss-islington', 'gauchj']
pr_nums = ['7986', '8018', '8019', '8021']
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'fixed'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = 'behavior'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue33974'
versions = ['Python 2.7', 'Python 3.6', 'Python 3.7', 'Python 3.8']

[gauchj]

_stringify escapes special characters so they can be processed by tcl/tk. To that end, two different escaping techniques are implemented: put a backslash in front of every special character or put the entire string in curly braces.

However, a string like the following one:

'"C:\\Windows\\System32\\notepad.exe" "afile.txt"'

will be incorrectly escaped to

'"C:\\\\Windows\\\\System32\\\\notepad.exe"\\ "afile.txt"'

Tcl/TK will interpret this as a quoted string, but with a backslash after it (the one escaping the space between the quoted strings), throwing this exception:
TclError('list element in quotes followed by "\\" instead of space',)

The attached patch escapes this to

'{"C:\\\\Windows\\\\System32\\\\notepad.exe" "afile.txt"}'

I am not 100% sure that this is correct since double backslashes seem to be displayed now.

[serhiy-storchaka]

How did you find this bug?

[gauchj]

I tried to display entries from the Windows Registry in a TreeView.

[serhiy-storchaka]

This issue needs more complex fix. PR 7986 adds necessary changes and tests.

Thank you for your report Gauchj.

[serhiy-storchaka]

New changeset 5bb5bbf by Serhiy Storchaka in branch 'master':
bpo-33974: Fix passing special characters to ttk widgets. (GH-7986)
5bb5bbf

[miss-islington]

New changeset 42ea522 by Miss Islington (bot) in branch '3.7':
bpo-33974: Fix passing special characters to ttk widgets. (GH-7986)
42ea522

[miss-islington]

New changeset b2e88fc by Miss Islington (bot) in branch '3.6':
bpo-33974: Fix passing special characters to ttk widgets. (GH-7986)
b2e88fc

[serhiy-storchaka]

New changeset 9b84cc8 by Serhiy Storchaka in branch '2.7':
[2.7] bpo-33974: Fix passing special characters to ttk widgets. (GH-7986) (GH-8021)
9b84cc8