Ticket #73: do not intercept 'cd' in compound commands by mareklibra · Pull Request #5121 · MidnightCommander/mc

mareklibra · 2026-05-27T10:41:01Z

Proposed changes

Skip internal cd handling when the command line contains unescaped ';', '&&', or '||', letting the shell execute it instead.

Resolves: savannah: ';' separated UNIX commands started from cd #73

Checklist

👉 Our coding style can be found here: https://midnight-commander.org/coding-style/ 👈

I have referenced the issue(s) resolved by this PR (if any)
I have signed-off my contribution with git commit --amend -s
Lint and unit tests pass locally with my changes (make indent && make check)
I have added tests that prove my fix is effective or that my feature works
I have added the necessary documentation (if appropriate)

ossilator · 2026-05-27T11:06:09Z

+
+    for (p = cmd; *p != '\0'; p++)
+    {
+        if (*p == ';' && (p == cmd || *(p - 1) != '\\'))


this is unreliable. you need to parse forward.

ossilator · 2026-05-27T11:06:31Z

+    {
+        if (*p == ';' && (p == cmd || *(p - 1) != '\\'))
+            return TRUE;
+        if (p[0] == '&' && p[1] == '&')


why do you exclude single amps and pipes?

ossilator · 2026-05-27T11:09:08Z

+ */
+
+gboolean
+has_shell_metacharacters (const char *cmd)


i think it would be better to use glib's shell_parse_argv() with NULL output arguments.

used for validation

ossilator · 2026-05-28T17:54:17Z

+        return TRUE;
+    }
+
+    for (p = cmd; *p != '\0'; p++)


huh, that's not what i meant. the idea is that you can entirely replace this code with the above call. the remaining comments were only for the case that the idea turns out infeasible.

after a second thought, the idea needs to be revised, of course: you actually need to use the output. that means that you need to weave it somewhat more deeply into enter() below instead of "bolting it on".

It seems like the GLib doesn't treat ; as a command separator, causing errors for commands like cd ..;ls, cd /tmp;ls, cd ..&&ls, cd & or cd a&b.
On the other hand, a command like cd .. ; ls would work well with g_shell_parse_argv().

For that reason, a forward-parsing has_unquoted_metacharacters() pre-check is still there.

I have added more test cases.

It seems like the GLib doesn't treat ; as a command separator,

huh, that looks like an outright bug.
maybe they tried fixing over-interpreting # inside words, and caused collateral damage.

I found this comment: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/blob/main/glib/gshell.c#L356
It seems like they claim it as a feature, not a bug.

I believe the right behavior for the MC is to be closest to the shell as possible.
@ossilator What do you think about reverting the last change and doing the parsing on our own?

yeah, it seems that this function is too far removed from actual shells. i thought it would be closer to https://github.com/KDE/kcoreaddons/blob/master/src/lib/util/kshell_unix.cpp#L46 in AbortOnMeta mode. do only our own forward-parsing.

Skip internal cd handling when the command line contains unquoted shell metacharacters (; | &) or command substitution syntax ($( or `), letting the shell execute it instead. Double quotes suppress operators but not command substitution, matching real shell behavior. Signed-off-by: Marek Libra <marek.libra@gmail.com>

ossilator

just a few optimization ideas.
note that didn't check the underlying assumptions about tolerable syntax.

ossilator · 2026-06-07T07:14:33Z

+
+        if (in_double_quote)
+        {
+            if (*p == '\\' && p[1] != '\0')


you can delete that ...

Signed-off-by: Marek Libra <marek.libra@gmail.com>

mareklibra · 2026-06-16T10:44:01Z

@ossilator Can you please have a look at the last changes?

ossilator

looks fine, i'm "handing off" to the maintainers.

(but please squash and force-push.)

mareklibra · 2026-06-26T09:26:57Z

@zyv Can you please have a look here?

Signed-off-by: Marek Libra <marek.libra@gmail.com>

mareklibra · 2026-08-03T07:40:42Z

Maintainers, may I ask for review here?

zyv · 2026-08-03T08:09:24Z

@zyv Can you please have a look here?

Sorry, I won't have time for mc until I'm through with my exams... and after that, some solution must be found so that I can dedicate the time to it that it deserves. Before I started with the exams, I paid about half a year of full-time engagement out of my pocket, and this is, sadly, not very sustainable. At the moment, I have 3 exams out of 14 left to complete the course. I'm only able to react to something either really trivial or really urgent at the moment.

mareklibra · 2026-08-03T09:04:27Z

Understood. Having an additional maintainer would definitely help address that issue. To my knowledge, the MC still has a large user base and a long list of contributors.

I love this project - I've been using it for as long as I can remember. I grew up with Norton Commander and was looking for an alternative. Back then, in the ancient days...

@zyv Good luck with your exams!

zyv · 2026-08-03T09:44:54Z

Understood. Having an additional maintainer would definitely help address that issue.

I haven't talked to @aborodin in a while (for the same reasons), but I think he is still somewhat active - albeit he has had internet access problems recently. Maybe he can have a look and decide.

To my knowledge, the MC still has a large user base and a long list of contributors.

Sure, but like for most foundational open source projects, nobody is up to set up a couple of maintainers with a decent full-time job (maintaining those said projects). For companies, it's much better to extract short-term profit when they can - and why wouldn't they - it's capitalism after all, and for users it's great to get free stuff.

Contributors are actually more of a problem than help, because most submit stuff that takes more time to review and get into shape than do it yourself (I haven't looked at your submission, so this is not in any way directed against it - just a general observation).

The exceptions I've seen far are people who’ve got financially independent by completely other means, or indeed a few lucky ones who’ve got employed by FAANG maintaining their projects. I wouldn't mind it either - but so far it didn't work out for me that way.

I love this project - I've been using it for as long as I can remember. I grew up with Norton Commander and was looking for an alternative. Back then, in the ancient days...

@zyv Good luck with your exams!

Thanks, I'll definitively need it.

mc-worker · 2026-08-03T18:21:02Z

@mareklibra Please squash commits in your branch and push forced as @ossilator asked you.

github-actions Bot added needs triage Needs triage by maintainers prio: medium Has the potential to affect progress labels May 27, 2026

github-actions Bot added this to the Future Releases milestone May 27, 2026

ossilator reviewed May 27, 2026

View reviewed changes

mareklibra force-pushed the issue.73.cdSemicolon branch from c5350f7 to db89c89 Compare May 27, 2026 12:53

ossilator reviewed May 28, 2026

View reviewed changes

mareklibra force-pushed the issue.73.cdSemicolon branch 2 times, most recently from 1836b8b to 17d31ab Compare May 29, 2026 08:30

mareklibra force-pushed the issue.73.cdSemicolon branch from 17d31ab to 7243ff1 Compare June 6, 2026 20:58

mareklibra force-pushed the issue.73.cdSemicolon branch from 7243ff1 to 1c35906 Compare June 6, 2026 21:00

ossilator reviewed Jun 7, 2026

View reviewed changes

review

c0209d1

Signed-off-by: Marek Libra <marek.libra@gmail.com>

mareklibra force-pushed the issue.73.cdSemicolon branch from 289a242 to c0209d1 Compare June 7, 2026 19:24

ossilator reviewed Jun 17, 2026

View reviewed changes

align with coding style

6a246b0

Signed-off-by: Marek Libra <marek.libra@gmail.com>

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mareklibra commented May 27, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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mareklibra commented Jun 16, 2026

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mareklibra commented Jun 26, 2026

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mareklibra commented Aug 3, 2026

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zyv commented Aug 3, 2026

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mareklibra commented Aug 3, 2026

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zyv commented Aug 3, 2026

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mc-worker commented Aug 3, 2026

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mareklibra commented May 27, 2026 •

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