# Command Prompt wont take input paths

**URL:** <https://discourse.processing.org/t/command-prompt-wont-take-input-paths/21152>\
**Category:** Coding Questions\
**Created:** [May 21, 2020, 11:52pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/command-prompt-wont-take-input-paths/21152 "2020-05-21T23:52:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![F53](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.processing.org/f53/32/7118_2.png) [@F53](https://discourse.processing.org/u/F53)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2020, 11:52pm UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/command-prompt-wont-take-input-paths/21152/1 "2020-05-21T23:52:52Z")

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I am writing a program to automate an .exe file that takes file paths as arguments.  
Lets call this file we want to automatically call `scale.exe`

The Strings `scalarPath`, `inputPath`, and `outputPath` are all made using the function `sketchPath()`

My program is calls scale.exe like this:  
`launch(scalarPath + "scale.exe" + inputPath + " " + outputPath);`

.

The issue is `sketchPath()` can return a result with spaces, for example:  
`C:\Program Files\example`

The command prompt interprets said space as the end of an argument, leading to an error

How do I make command prompt interpret the full path, instead of splitting at a space?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![SomeOne](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/discourse.processing.org/someone/32/8639_2.png) [@SomeOne](https://discourse.processing.org/u/SomeOne)\
**Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 5:07am UTC](https://discourse.processing.org/t/command-prompt-wont-take-input-paths/21152/2 "2020-05-22T05:07:28Z")

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You probably need to escape the space character inside the string. Looks like it’s done with a caret character ^, but based on included article things are not necessarily straight forward. Anyway try to replace the space ’ ’ with '^ ’ - caret and space

> <https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43813677/escaping-spaces-in-windows>