RunProcess fails when a directory path contains a space

Question

In my "Documents" folder I've created two directories with names "тест" and "тест 2". When I try to use RunProcess for obtaining directory listing for the first directory it works as expected:

RunProcess[{"cmd", "/c", "\"dir /b \"D:\\Documents\\тест\"\""}]    

<|"ExitCode" -> 0, "StandardOutput" -> "test file.txt

  ", "StandardError" -> ""|>

But for the second directory it fails telling that the file is not found:

RunProcess[{"cmd", "/c", "\"dir /b \"D:\\Documents\\тест 2\\\"\""}]    

<|"ExitCode" -> 1, "StandardOutput" -> "", 
 "StandardError" -> "Не удается найти указанный файл.

  "|>

It is interesting that the same happens when I remove the additional quotes around the directory path:

RunProcess[{"cmd", "/c", "\"dir /b D:\\Documents\\тест 2\\\""}]    

<|"ExitCode" -> 1, "StandardOutput" -> "", 
 "StandardError" -> "Не удается найти указанный файл.

  "|>

If I remove the ending backslash \\, I get the directory listing for the directory "тест" (instead of "тест 2") and the "File Not Found" error:

RunProcess[{"cmd", "/c", "\"dir /b D:\\Documents\\тест 2\""}]    

<|"ExitCode" -> 1, "StandardOutput" -> "test file.txt

  ", "StandardError" -> "Файл не найден

  "|>

Wrapping the directory path with quotes changes nothing:

RunProcess[{"cmd", "/c", "\"dir /b \"D:\\Documents\\тест 2\"\""}]

<|"ExitCode" -> 1, "StandardOutput" -> "test file.txt

  ", "StandardError" -> "Файл не найден

  "|>

It looks like the quotes are simply ignored...

Why is that? Is it a bug? Is there a workaround?

When I try the old Import route everything works as expected:

Import["!dir /b \"D:\\Documents\\тест 2\\\"", "Text"]

"test file 2.txt"

Answer 1

Update

I developed the following workflow in an attempt make the process a little more robust.

First, I created a directory and test file with no spaces or special character. Then I opened a command shell to confirm that the command is working as expected with simple characters. Once it is working as expected, I saved the command history as shown in the screen cap below.

Next, I imported the history as a table in Mathematica

SetDirectory[NotebookDirectory[]];
histtable = Import["hist.txt", "Table"]
(* {{"cd", "Dropbox\\WolframCommunity"}, {"dir", "/b", 
  "e:DocTest\\testdir"}, {"doskey", "/History", ">", "hist.txt"}} *)

I see that the second to the last element of the list contains the DOS command that I want to process. So, I created a function to replace my command list with simple names to arbitrary names.

cmdfunction[dir_] := {"cmd", "/c"}~
  Join~(StringReplace["testdir" -> dir] /@ histtable[[-2]])

Now, we can test if RunProcess works on our troublesome folder.

RunProcess@cmdfunction["тест 2"]
(* <|"ExitCode" -> 0, "StandardOutput" -> "test file 2.txt

  ", "StandardError" -> ""|> *)

It appears to work. Perhaps, this workflow could be adapted to prepare other DOS commands for RunProcess to take out some of the guesswork.

Original

I broke the command up and got it to work on my system (note that I did it in E:\DocTest).

RunProcess[{"cmd", "/c", "dir", "/b", 
  "E:\\DocTest\\тест 2\\"}]
(* <|"ExitCode" -> 0, "StandardOutput" -> "test file 2.txt

  ", "StandardError" -> ""|> *)