[Oorexx-devel] Proposed ooRexx for Unix/Linux Changes

[David A. <da...@us...>]

Proposed ooRexx for Unix/Linux Changes

Currently there is a major difference between the Windows and Unix version 
of
ooRexx concerning the way that the command line is handled. On Windows, 
ooRexx
uses a Windows API to obtain the command line arguments as a string which 
is
then stored for use by the script as the arg(1) value. ooRexx does no 
parsing
of this string and passes it intact for use. On Unix, the command line is 
not
available via a system API and the command line must be reconstructed from
the formal C argc and argv standard arguments supplied to the C main 
procedure.
The problem is that ooRexx does not reconstruct the command line properly
i.e. any surrounding double quotes for any arguments are not included in 
the
command line reconstruction. This causes a portability problem between the
command line parsing behaviour of scripts on Windows and Unix.

The ooRexx development team proposes to fix this problem in the next 
release
so that the Unix versions of ooRexx reconstructs the command line as 
closely
as possible to what the user actually typed. Reconstruction cannot be 100%
as there will be no way to determine the number of blanks between some
arguments. But we propose to at least perform the following actions during
the reconstruction of the command line:

1. If a C argv argument contains embedded blanks it will be reconstructed 
with
   surrounding double quotes.
2. If a C argv argument contains a double quote an escape character will 
be
   inserted in front of the double quote. The escape character will be a
   backslash ('\') character.
3. If a C argv argument contains a backslash an escape character will be
   inserted in front of the backslash. The escape character will be a
   backslash ('\') character.
4. The final command line will contain one space character between all of
   the arguments.

The steps listed above should provide a command line to the Unix ooRexx 
script
that is at least 98% compatible with what is provided in Windows thus
increasing the portability of scripts to and from Windows and Unix.

Please note that we are not proposing any changes to the way that ooRexx
handles the command line on Windows. This proposal only concerns the Unix
versions of ooRexx.

The ooRexx development team is soliciting your feedback on this proposal. 
You
can reply to the oorexx-devel mailing list or directly to myself. 
Suggestions,
improvements, etc. are all welcome.

Thanks,
W. David Ashley
IBM Linux Technology Center
OpenHPI and Open Object Rexx Team
Home Office: 512-246-9106
Mobile Phone: 512-289-7506
IBM Phone: 512-838-0609 T/L 678-0609
Intranet: David Ashley/Austin/IBM@IBMUS
Internet: da...@us...
Alternate Internet: da...@ho...