Windows: credential_process cannot handle paths denoted with backslashes

[jordankay13]

Describe the bug

On Windows, when using credential_process, the executable cannot be contained in a folder that starts with t or n when using backslashes in the path.

For example:

[default]
credential_process = "C:\somefolder\tools\myexe.exe"

This will fail with the error:

'C:\somefolder' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

Expected Behavior

I expected my executable in the tools folder to be executed to fetch my AWS credentials:

[default]
credential_process = "C:\somefolder\tools\myexe.exe"

Current Behavior

Folders beginning with t or n are treated as tabs or newlines when using backslashes.

In fact, the example path in these docs for Windows would hit this bug:
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-configure-sourcing-external.html
because "C:\Path\To\credentials.cmd" would be corrupted at the To folder.

Reproduction Steps

Setup your credentials file similar to:

[default]
credential_process = "C:\somefolder\tools\myexe.exe"

I don't have a program that I've written for this -- I'm just using an OpenTelemetry Collector, and it's written in Go:
https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/blob/main/exporter/awskinesisexporter/exporter.go#L60

The premise is that the call to config.LoadDefaultConfig with the above credentials file results in the error.

Possible Solution

No response

Additional Information/Context

No response

AWS Go SDK V2 Module Versions Used

github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/config v1.18.38

Compiler and Version used

1.20.8

Operating System and version

Windows

[lucix-aws]

@jordankay13 -- Do escaped backslashes exhibit the same issue?

e.g.

[default]
credential_process = "C:\\somefolder\\tools\\myexe.exe"

[jordankay13]

@jordankay13 -- Do escaped backslashes exhibit the same issue?

e.g.

[default]
credential_process = "C:\\somefolder\\tools\\myexe.exe"

It looks like escaped backslashes also fails -- Using forward slashes works though (C:/somefolder/tools/myexe.exe)

[lucix-aws]

I have some more context into this after recently re-writing the entire ini parser in #2365.

This manual escaping of \* sequences is something we've always done, it's not standardized behavior whatsoever.

As it so happens, in the aforementioned refactor I unintentionally removed part of that behavior. As of the current version we now only escape \n, \", and \'.

Normally we're opposed to making changes like this - https://www.hyrumslaw.com/ - but I'm reconsidering here given that there was no apparent fallout from the partial removal.

[lucix-aws]

Will be resolved by #2461

[github-actions]

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