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This is really strange. cgypath is returning paths with spaces in them, and when I try to cd to them, they fail as not being able to be found. I also notice this strange behavior with pwd. Observe this:

MyUser@MyMachine /cygdrive/c/Program Files/Java/jdk1.6.0_45
$ pwd
/cygdrive/c/Program Files/Java/jdk1.6.0_45

MyUser@MyMachine /cygdrive/c/Program Files/Java/jdk1.6.0_45
$ cd /cygdrive/c/Program Files/Java/jdk1.6.0_45
-bash: cd: /cygdrive/c/Program: No such file or directory

MyUser@MyMachine /cygdrive/c/Program Files/Java/jdk1.6.0_45

Why is this happening?

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8

You need to escape your spaces with backslashes or quote your paths:

cd /cygdrive/c/Program\ Files/Java/jdk1.6.0_45

or

cd "/cygdrive/c/Program Files/Java/jdk1.6.0_45"

This is because commands take multiple arguments. The arguments are separated by spaces, so the command line thinks you pass the argument /cygdrive/c/Program and the argument Files/Java/jdk1.6.0_45 to the command cd.

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4
  • Sorry I didn't include an example usage of cygpath, but it does contain quotes. I'm curious though, should pwd print a path that is accessible without alteration? – Zombies Mar 31 '14 at 15:53
  • Well, that means your example in your question is wrong, because in your example you don't use quotes. I'm currently not on windows, so I can't check cygwin, but on Mac, this works fine: Kay@Kays-Mac-Pro:/Volumes/xbmc/System Volume Information/ > cd "`pwd`" Kay@Kays-Mac-Pro:/Volumes/xbmc/System Volume Information/ > cd "`pwd`"/../ Kay@Kays-Mac-Pro:/Volumes/xbmc/ – user23127 Mar 31 '14 at 15:59
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    Oh I get it now. The quotes need to be on the output and not on the input (to the cygpath command) only. Since the output has unescaped spaces. – Zombies Mar 31 '14 at 16:16
  • @Zombies This comment should be an answer, you just saved me hours of pain – smac89 Apr 26 '16 at 6:02

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