VS Code Preview not working if path contains special characters

[cbrnr]

Bug description

If the path to the .qmd contains special character, e.g., ~/temp/name;with@symbols, Quarto Preview does not work because it doesn't escape the characters.

Steps to reproduce

1. Create a folder with special characters, e.g., mkdir "name;with@symbols".
2. Open this folder in VS Code (File → Open Folder) and create a .qmd file. The content doesn't matter, here's a minimal document:

---
title: "Untitled"
format: html
---

Test.

3. Save the .qmd and run "Quarto: Preview"

Actual behavior

I get an error because the special characters are not escaped:

~/temp/name;with@symbols ❯ quarto preview /Users/clemens/temp/name;with@symbols/Untitled-1.qmd --no-browser --no-watch-inputs
ERROR: /Users/clemens/temp/name not found

Expected behavior

The preview should render successfully even if the path contains special characters. The solution is pretty straightforward, just escape special characters, or even easier, enclose the path argument in double quotes.

~/temp/name;with@symbols ❯ quarto preview "/Users/clemens/temp/name;with@symbols/Untitled-1.qmd" --no-browser --no-watch-inputs

Your environment

• IDE: VSCode
• OS: macOS Tahoe 26.6.2
• Quarto version: 1.10.18

[cbrnr]

I'm happy to submit a PR if you want.

[cscheid]

Thanks! We can take a look at a PR. But (and I'm pretty sure you know all of this - but I'll say it anyway for other readers):

just escape special characters

To be intentionally graphic about it, that road is littered with the bodies of those who've attempted to cross it before.

Escaping rules differ from one shell to another, from one OS to another, from one configuration of a shell inside an OS to another (hello, windows codepages, I see you). All that to say: this is truly far from a simple problem, and I would strongly encourage you to stick to plain old ascii names in [0-9a-z_-].

Even doing case sensitive things is tempting fate in a world of broken filesystems like those of macos and windows. It pains me to say this because I speak natively a language full of diacritics. This class of problem is genuinely beyond our ability to fully address.

[cbrnr]

To be intentionally graphic about it, that road is littered with the bodies of those who've attempted to cross it before.

Sure, I am fully aware, but that's why I would just enclose the path in double quotes, no escaping required at all.

The thing is, I do not have control over folder names that other tools create for me. As an example, my Nextcloud folder happens to contain parentheses. Don't ask me why, but I simply cannot change it and I don't have any influence on it, so the arguably excellent advice to stick to plain ASCII characters just doesn't work all the time.

[cscheid]

Yup, understood! But I think unfortunately the end state will be closer to "Quarto can't work perfectly inside those folders" than I'd prefer to otherwise admit.

[cbrnr]

That's fine, but for this particular problem I think this solution will very likely fix it. It's enough if it goes from "VS Code Preview doesn't work inside those folders" to "VS Code Preview now works", no need for making "Quarto works perfectly inside those folders" work! Thanks for taking a look!