Re: [Refdb-users] Curious refdbc -C "getref ..." behaviour

[David N. <dav...@bi...>]

Markus Hoenicka wrote:

>refdbc in batch mode accepts all options to the specified command on
>the command line. There is no need to enclose the whole getref command
>in quotes. The obvious advantage is that you get rid of one level of
>quoting.
>  
>

Hmm.  Quite right.

The reason I began quoting refdb batch commands was that the first 
command I ever tried executing in batch mode was "getref -h".

When I tried it without quotes << refdbc -C getref -h >>, it gave the 
generic refdbc help.

When I tried it with quotes << refdbc -C "getref -h" >>, it worked.

My conclusion was that batch commands needed to wrapped in quotes and I 
have done so ever since.

In retrospect it is easy to see that, without quotes, refdbc interpreted 
the "-h" as an option to refdbc and ignored the "-C getref", effectively 
executing << refdbc -h >>.

This is probably the only case where quotes are necessary, and probably 
doesn't even classify as a bug.  One way to fix this behaviour might be 
to change the refdbc help option to "--help".  An easy workaround might 
be to simply document this behaviour in the manual.

Regards,
David.