separate_arguments

Parse command-line arguments into a semicolon-separated list.

separate_arguments(<variable> <mode> <args>)

Parses a space-separated string <args> into a list of items, and stores this list in semicolon-separated standard form in <variable>.

This function is intended for parsing command-line arguments. The entire command line must be passed as one string in the argument <args>.

The exact parsing rules depend on the operating system. They are specified by the <mode> argument which must be one of the following keywords:

UNIX_COMMAND

Arguments are separated by by unquoted whitespace. Both single-quote and double-quote pairs are respected. A backslash escapes the next literal character (\" is "); there are no special escapes (\n is just n).

WINDOWS_COMMAND

A Windows command-line is parsed using the same syntax the runtime library uses to construct argv at startup. It separates arguments by whitespace that is not double-quoted. Backslashes are literal unless they precede double-quotes. See the MSDN article Parsing C Command-Line Arguments for details.

NATIVE_COMMAND

Proceeds as in WINDOWS_COMMAND mode if the host system is Windows. Otherwise proceeds as in UNIX_COMMAND mode.

separate_arguments(<var>)

Convert the value of <var> to a semi-colon separated list. All spaces are replaced with ‘;’. This helps with generating command lines.