Incorrect parsing of options with escaped quotes

[jettdc]

trying to parse the string:

const curl = `curl -X POST "https://api.example.com/data" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d "{\\"key\\": \\"This string has an escaped backslash: \\\\ and a newline: \\\\n\\"}"`;

Which is equivalent to the valid curl command

curl -X POST "https://api.example.com/data" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d "{\"key\": \"This string has an escaped backslash: \\ and a newline: \\n\"}"

But when I parse it, my args array looks like the following:

_: [
        'curl',
        'https://api.example.com/data',
        'string',
        'has',
        'an',
        'escaped',
        'backslash:',
        '\\\\',
        'and',
        'a',
        'newline:',
        '\\\\n\\"}"'
      ],

Am I missing something or is this a bug?

[shadowspawn]

yargs-parser does not support escaping embedded quotes, but it does support nesting quotes. So you can have " inside ' quotes.

I am not sure what quoting you would want for the slash and newline, but this quoting at least reads everything after the -d as the option value:

import parser from 'yargs-parser'
const curl = `curl -X POST "https://api.example.com/data" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"key": "This string has an escaped backslash: \\\\ and a newline: \\\\n"}'`;
const argv = parser(curl);
console.log(argv);

% node index.mjs
{
  _: [ 'curl', '"https://api.example.com/data"' ],
  X: 'POST',
  H: 'Content-Type: application/json',
  d: '{"key": "This string has an escaped backslash: \\\\ and a newline: \\\\n"}'
}

[jettdc]

Unfortunately these strings are coming from user input, and since the mentioned curl command is a valid curl command/bash/input, I need to be able to support it

Is there a reason it doesn't support escaping embedded quotes?

[shadowspawn]

If you can access the command after it is parsed by the shell into separate arguments then you avoid the problem that different shells/platforms and yargs split up command-line into arguments in different ways. (I realise this may not be possible in your use case, but I thought worth mentioning as a general approach.)

Related: #300 #385

Is there a reason it doesn't support escaping embedded quotes?

I suspect just hasn't come up enough.

A package I have used for some quoting work is: https://www.npmjs.com/package/shell-quote