Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!wuarchive!rex!uflorida!bernhold
From: bernhold@red8 (David E. Bernholdt)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
Subject: Re: Command line arguements?
Message-ID: <28837@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>
Date: 31 May 91 00:45:33 GMT
References: <24632@lanl.gov> <1991May30.174626.12965@cs.dal.ca> <24713@lanl.gov>
Sender: news@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU
Organization: Quantum Theory Project, Univ. of Florida
Lines: 32

In article <24713@lanl.gov> jlg@cochiti.lanl.gov (Jim Giles) writes:
>As I said above, the _shell_ processes the command line before I get to
>look at it.

This is quite true, but it is actually a characteristic of unix shells
rather than unix implementation of Fortran -- the shell will process
the arguments before turning them over to _any_ program, no matter
what the language.  So at least its not discriminating!

Naieve (sp?) users can easily get confused between regular expressions
and shell filename expansions.  Grep is a good example of a standard
unix utility which is ripe for such confusion.  I've found it helps in
explaining such things to stress the fact that the shell does
expansions related to file names before anything else -- so anything
you want to be treated as a regular expression (which is what Jim
wanted in his 'phone S*m S*de' example) must be protected (by quoting)
in order to survive the shell's onslaught.

It doesn't change the situation, but it (in my experience) does help
users understand what's going on.

Although I don't consider terribly useful in general, it is also worth
notng that many shells have a way to turn off "globbing", as its
called.  This just reverses the problem -- regular expressions go
through okay, but you can't wildcard files...

We now return you to your regular Fortran discussions...
-- 
David Bernholdt			bernhold@qtp.ufl.edu
Quantum Theory Project		bernhold@ufpine.bitnet
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL  32611		904/392 6365