A better fix for space in HTML filename

The fix was reported here:

https://bkhome.org/news/202602/fix-open-html-filename-with-space-char.html

So /usr/local/bin/defaultbrowser became this:

#!/bin/sh
P="$(echo -n "$1" | sed -e 's/ /%20/g')"
exec chromium "${P}"

...that works when click on a HTML file in ROX-Filer, as rox only passes a single parameter, $1.

However, 'defaultbrowser' is supposed to be generic, able to handle multiple passed parameters, $1 $2 $3 etc.

I have devised another method:

#!/bin/sh
set -- ${1// /%20} ${2// /%20} ${3// /%20} ${4// /%20}
exec chromium ${@}

...what that does is replace space characters from each passed parameter. I am only doing that up to $4

The rationale is that only one of those $1 to $4 will be the actual HTML filename, and applying the space-char replacement on the others won't do anything.  

EDIT 2026-02-11:
Note that could have just done this:

#!/bin/sh
exec chromium ${1// /%20} ${2// /%20} ${3// /%20} ${4// /%20}

However, there are scripts that read /usr/local/bin/defaultbrowser and edit it and expect the exec line to be of the format "exec chromium $@"

I need to look at this more carefully. A quick check of the PET package "defaults chooser"; it edits  the default* files with this:

echo "#!/bin/sh" > "$newroot/usr/local/bin/default$TYPE"
echo "exec $P \"\$@\"" >> "$newroot/usr/local/bin/default$TYPE"

...not good, that's going back to the old behaviour, expecting a single passed parameter only.

The defaults-chooser PET is ancient, originally written by sc0ttman circa 2010, latter worked on by shinobar, rerwin and myself.

There are some other scripts that edit default* files by only modifying the "exec" line and leave whatever is before as-is.

Putting this on the to-do list for further investigation.

EDIT 2026-02-13:
Decided to keep it simple, treat parameter passed to /usr/local/bin/default* as just one parameter, the file to be opened. This is how it has been traditionally in Puppy; trying to get fancy is too difficult.

The Default Application Chooser app uses this single-parameter approach, and I have fixed it:

https://bkhome.org/news/202602/default-applications-chooser-fixes.html

...it sets /usr/local/bin/defaultbrowser like this:

#!/bin/sh
exec chromium "${1// /%20}"

And all the others as, for example, defaulttexteditor:

#!/bin/sh
exec geany "${@}"   

   

Tags: easy