=== What steps will reproduce the problem ===
If you create a windows batch file containing a scala program and try to pass arguments containing parentheses, an error is reported.

Create, for instance, a batch file printargs.bat that contains a scala program that just prints the arguments:

::#!
@echo off
scala %0 %*
goto :eof
::!#
args foreach println

If you call it like that, the windows command line interpreter reports a syntax error:

printargs.bat "foo(bar)baz"

=== What is the expected behavior? ===
It should print

foo(bar)baz

=== What do you see instead? ===
A syntax error in scala.bat at the line

  set _ARGS=%*

=== Additional information ===

If you change scala.bat such that it passes %* directly to the java call, instead of trying to put the content into a local variable, the problem disappears. So I suggest that scala.bat should be refactored to avoid using the _ARGS variable when it is not necessary.

=== What versions of the following are you using? ===

• Scala: 2.8.1
• Java: 1.6.0_21-b07
• Operating system: Windows XP