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From: kenw@skyler.arc.ab.ca (Ken Wallewein)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Globbing
Message-ID: <KENW.91Mar1125012@skyler.arc.ab.ca>
Date: 1 Mar 91 18:50:12 GMT
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In-Reply-To: cks@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu's message of 1 Mar 91 03:54:27 GMT

> From: cks@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu (Chris Siebenmann)
>
>   Actually, all the quoting bullshit is still there, just in a more
>  rarely needed context where its very infrequency increases the danger
>  of someone forgetting about the need for it. This is because you still
>  need to be able to do have programs (like rm and mv, or their
>  equivalents) work on files with globbing characters in their names. You
>  also have to stick this quoting logic into anything that spits out
>  filenames that are going to be handed to other programs; consider "find
>  / <conditions> -exec operate {} \;" or its equivalent.

  Good points.  Note, though, that this really applies to _all_ "special"
characters, whether they are special to the shell or to the program.
Consider, for instance, files named "-" and "--".  Or '"'.  Pathological
examples abound :-).

  Perhaps what is needed is a way to tell a program unambiguously about its
arguments, eg: "this argument is a literal file specification, that
argument is a wildcard filespec, the next argument is an option, and after
that is non-filespec argument of arbitrary content".  I have no suggestions
on how to do this.

  I think that argument about "its very infrequency increases the danger of
someone forgetting about the need for it" is probably not very well
founded.  By extension, I should be constantly faced with mortal peril so I
remember how to deal with it.  Suboptimal, dude.  Nuisances should
generally be avoided.
--
/kenw

Ken Wallewein                                                     A L B E R T A
kenw@noah.arc.ab.ca  <-- replies (if mailed) here, please       R E S E A R C H
(403)297-2660                                                     C O U N C I L