From: Luke Cole <luke@(email surpressed).au>
Subject: Re: Rush + Autodesk Cleaner?
   Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 04:10:17 -0400

Hi Greg,

	OK, now that we're sure cleaner is the one that's hanging,
	I have a suggestion. It's going to sound silly, but change
	all your I: specifications to a UNC equivalent if possible.

	Assuming the I: drive is a network drive and has a UNC equivalent
	(and is not a SAN or local drive), be careful with the double
	slashes of the UNC; you'll need to use \\\\ to get a double slash,
	but just use singles for the single slashes, eg:

my $err = system('"C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Cleaner XL 1.5 \Cleaner XL" '. '/I \\\\someserver\somevol\TVC_Tools \CleanerToolkit\profiles\input\DV_PAL_4x3.ip '. '/O \\\\someserver\somevol\TVC_Tools \CleanerToolkit\profiles\output\3GP_PAL_4x3.opt '. '/D \\\\someserver\somevol\TVC_Tools \CleanerToolkit\renders '. '/sources \\\\someserver\somevol\TVC_Tools \CleanerToolkit\test_data\test.mov');

	I know it looks weird, but the reasoning is that '\\' *even*
	inside single quotes is still a special case. So you only
	double up on the escaping for the first slashes, not the rest.

	If you'd like to try to replicate outside of rush, and
	assuming the above UNC technique either doesn't help
	or is not relevant, try this:

		1) Enable the Windows telnet service on this machine. See:

WINXP TELNET: http://www.seriss.com/rush-current/misc/windows- telnet.html#WinXP WIN2K TELNET: http://www.seriss.com/rush-current/misc/windows- telnet.html#Win2K WIN2K3 TELNET: http://www.seriss.com/rush-current/misc/windows- telnet.html#Win2K3

		2) Telnet into the machine, and run your command.

	Does it hang? If so, you have a way to replicate the problem
	for Autodesk.

	And while you're at it, definitely report two bugs to Autodesk:

	    a) Having spaces in executable names is just really bad practice.

	    b) Using front slashes for option flags is also REALLY BAD.
               Besides making porting impossible, it disables the use

of front slash UNC pathnames, which IS supported by Windows.

	Regarding (b), just because Microsoft made that mistake in 1985
	with DOS (which we now have to live with) doesn't mean Autodesk
	should follow their lead in 2007 to make life doubly miserable
	for command line scripting. GRR!

L8r,

---
Luke Cole
Research & Development

FUEL International
65 King St., Newtown, Sydney NSW, Australia 2042