1297074 - mach / the build system really don't like mozconfig paths with spaces (at least on Windows)

Status: NEW

(Firefox Build System :: General, defect, P4)

Description

[:Gijs (he/him)]

STR:

1. export MOZCONFIG=/c/some path/with spaces/mozconfig
2. ./mach build

This breaks mach with bizarre errors, apparently because of http://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/bb22cc4067c3832b943507497389b0b13d6f3a2b/python/mozbuild/mozbuild/mozconfig_loader#70 being unquoted. But even quoting that just means we break somewhere a bit later in "make" land.

Not sure if this is effectively WONTFIX, but better to have a bug on file than no, I figured.

Comment 1

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

Paths with spaces and the build system don't go well together. The build system should fail early and often if spaces are present.

You can work around this on Windows by using 8.3 paths.

Comment 2

[Mirko Brodesser (:mbrodesser) -- not reading bugmails currently]

It would be helpful to update https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/setup/windows_build.html#bootstrap-a-copy-of-the-firefox-source-code to contain https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/setup/windows_build.html#spaces-in-folder-names or at least refer to it, so that one is prevented to run into the problem.