如何在Windows cmd上执行git log？

Question

I have the following command:

git log --pretty=tformat:'<li>%h %ci %d %s</li>' > changelog.html

That saves the git log to the changelog.html file. When i execute it through git bash, it works fine, but when i put this code in a .bat file and run it, i get the following error:

The system could not find the specified file

I think it's caused by the quotes on the format parameter, but i don't know how to solve the problem... Is there a way to escape the quotes maybe?

Answer 1

Inside a Windows batch file, you have to:

• double % chars. for them to be taken as literals
• use double quotes to protect embedded whitespace or other special chars. such as > :

git log --pretty=tformat:"<li>%%h %%ci %%d %%s</li>" > changelog.html

• Generally, you can also use ^ to escape individual characters in an unquoted string (eg, ^% to represent literal % , or ^| to represent literal | ), but that wouldn't work here , because of the following caveat :
  You cannot use ^ to escape a space character in order to form a single argument with embedded whitespace; for instance, foo^ bar is still split into 2 arguments, foo and bar .

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Some background for readers from the Unix world :

• There is no equivalent to a POSIX-like shell's single -quoted strings (strings to be taken literally , with no expansions taking place) in the Windows batch language.
  • Single quotes generally have no special meaning in the Windows batch language (except in certain special contexts, such as a for loop) - they canNOT be used to delimit a string with embedded whitespace.
• Thus, analogous to how you have to escape $ in double-quoted bash strings as \\$ to prevent expansion, you have to escape % as %% in double-quoted strings to prevent expansions in batch files, given that an identifier enclosed in % chars. (eg, %PATH% ) signifies a variable reference to expand.
  • The curious thing is that an interactive cmd.exe prompt doesn't require escaping of % , whereas batch files do. ^{More specifically, % chars. in an interactive command line are treated as literals, unless they are part of a variable reference to an existing variable (eg, %windir% ), in which case expansion does take place. This oddity is the reason that a for loop must be written as for %i in ... ( one % ) on the command line, and as for %%i in ... ( two % ) in a batch file.}
• A caveat re passing double-quoted strings to batch files : When passing an argument enclosed in double quotes, the double quotes are included in the argument value ; the ~ parameter modifier can be used to strip them ; eg, %~1 returns the 1st argument without double quotes (if any).
• Finally, the counterpart of \\ -escaping individual characters in an unquoted string in a POSIX shell is ^ -escaping , but, as stated, ^ cannot be used to escape a space in order to form a single argument with embedded whitespace.