Go-ipfs: issues with paths in windows

[whyrusleeping]

Not sure whats going on here, i'm in bash in a mingw shell:

why@DESKTOP-K1JQ69C MINGW64 ~/go/src/github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs (master)
$ ipfs cat /ipfs/QmS4ustL54uo8FzR9455qaxZwuMiUhyvMcX9Ba8nUH4uVv/readme
Error: invalid 'ipfs ref' path

but this works:

why@DESKTOP-K1JQ69C MINGW64 ~/go/src/github.com/ipfs/go-ipfs (master)
$ ipfs cat QmS4ustL54uo8FzR9455qaxZwuMiUhyvMcX9Ba8nUH4uVv/readme
Hello and Welcome to IPFS!
...
...

[Kubuxu]

It is possible that mingw is trying to be sneaky and rewrites arguments starting with /, I am not sure how anyone thought it was good idea if this is a case.

[Stebalien]

It is possible that mingw is trying to be sneaky and rewrites arguments starting with /, I am not sure how anyone thought it was good idea if this is a case.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28533664/how-to-prevent-msys-to-convert-the-file-path-for-an-external-program

http://www.mingw.org/wiki/Posix_path_conversion

---

One solution here is to add a heuristic (client-side) that strips the prefix...

Regardless, we should consider modifying ipfs cat to spit the path back out on error (same as normal cat).

[Kubuxu]

This also causes issues with ipfs swarm peer connect.

[tylorr]

Following the posix path conversion article I was able to connect to a peer using
ipfs swarm connect "//ip4\104.131.131.82\tcp\4001\ipfs\QmaCpDMGvV2BGHeYERUEnRQAwe3N8SzbUtfsmvsqQLuvuJ"

[salsa-dev]

I have experienced the same problem with ipfs v0.4.13

Error: invalid multiaddr, must begin with /

Suggestion from @tylorr fixes the problem:

ipfs.exe bootstrap add "//ip4\192.168.1.7\tcp\4001\ipfs\QmZD8nWNhdfgdDXHmTrqUSSBz3uy7MudVhaBnqQP8mHWFRP"

[x5engine]

I am still having this bug

[Stebalien]

@x5engine unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about this issue other than:

1. Tell you to use a different shell.
2. Provide better feedback on the command line (I've filed two PRs for that).