Re: [Modules] aliases with square brackets in tcsh and modules 4.8.0

[Laurent B. <lau...@ea...>]

I did not run a full regression test but by modifying 2 lines inside modulecmd.tcl like this :

proc charEscaped {str {charlist " \\\\\t{}\[\]|<>!;#^\$&*?\"'`()"}} {
   return [regsub -all "\(\[$charlist\]\)" $str {\\\1}]
}

proc charUnescaped {str {charlist " \\\\\t{}\[\]|<>!;#^\$&*?\"'`()"}} {
   return [regsub -all "\\\\\(\[$charlist\]\)" $str {\1}]
}

I’m able to define the alias properly.

However, I’ve seen another issue as the $osrel variable was not replaced by its value. Maybe this is intended ? I’ll let Xavier comment on this.

Best regards,
Laurent.


De : Laurent BESSON <lau...@ea...>
Envoyé : mercredi 29 janvier 2025 11:21
À : Environment Modules usage and discussion. <mod...@li...>
Objet : Re: [Modules] aliases with square brackets in tcsh and modules 4.8.0

Hello,

Good news : I did reproduce your issue
Bad news : I see the same behaviour (not saying bug yet !) with version 5.5.0

If you just launch :

/usr/bin/tclsh ‘<path to your module version>/libexec/modulecmd.tcl' tcsh load <your module>

You will see what actually real alias command is computed by module.

With this line in the module :

set-alias mycommand {bsub -R "select\[type==X64LIN \&\& osrel==$osrel]" myapp}

I get this alias :

alias mycommand bsub\ -R\ \"select\\[type==X64LIN\ \\\&\\\&\ osrel==\$osrel]\"\ myapp;

It seems Module sees the « \ » and escape it adding another « \ ». But it does not do it for the square bracket itself.

At the end, I would say it is a bug inside Module.

Dear community, what do you think ?

BR,
Laurent.

De : Andreas Frank <af...@me...<mailto:af...@me...>>
Envoyé : mercredi 29 janvier 2025 10:49
À : mod...@li...<mailto:mod...@li...>
Objet : [Modules] aliases with square brackets in tcsh and modules 4.8.0

Hello,

we are currently trying to migrate from Modules 3.2.12 to 4.8.0.
Environment is RedHat 8 & 9, shell is tcsh.
We do not have the option to switch to anything else currently.

I need to have something like

> set osrel 80
> set-alias mycommand "bsub -R \"select[type==X64LIN && osrel==$osrel]\" myapp"

However, no matter what kind of escaping and quoting I apply (or none at all), I always end up with tcsh complaining:

alias: No match.

It seems the square brackets end up unescaped and unquoted in the tcsh alias command, no matter what I try. Resulting in a failing shell pattern match which is not what I want of course.

I tried:
[...]
\[...\]
{[...]}
{\[...\]}
{\\[...\\]}
{\\\[...\\\]}
"[...]"
"\[...\]"
"\\[...\\]<file://[.../%5d>"
"\\\[...\\\]<file:///[.../%5d>"
and probably some more, all without success.

Is there a way to get this working in 4.8.0? Is it a bug that's maybe fixed in newer versions (which I currently cannot test unfortunately)?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Andreas