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From: bill <bill.gunshannon@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Local Versus Global Command Options
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 2025 16:09:40 -0500
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On 2/17/2025 2:02 PM, Mark Berryman wrote:
> On 2/16/25 5:43 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>> On Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:52:23 -0700, Mark Berryman wrote:
>>
>>> On *nix systems, the shell parses the command line into an array of
>>> strings using unquoted spaces as the separator which is then passed to
>>> the created process.
>>
>> If you don’t go through a shell, then you pass an array of already-
>> separated words and you don’t have to worry about shell specials.
>>
>>> On VMS, the crtl does the same parsing which means the program still
>>> sees an array of strings the same as on a *nix system.
>>
>> Consider what happens: if you pass unquoted text to program X, DCL
>> converts it to uppercase, and I think also normalizes multiple spaces 
>> to a
>> single space. If you don’t want the text to be uppercased or space-
>> normalized, you put it in pairs of double quotes. But then these double
>> quotes also get passed as part of the command line. So the receiving
>> program has to do some non-trivial parsing just to get simple literal 
>> text
>> via the command line.
> 
> So, so, so very wrong.  You are *way* behind the times.
> 
> I *never* have to quote arguments when using programs that still use 
> *nix syntax on VMS.  My arguments' case is never changed.
> 
> Here is the entry point to any C program on VMS:
> 
>   int main (int argc, char *argv[], char *envp[]);
> 
> See?  Argument passing works the same on VMS as it does on *nix, as 
> described above.
> 
> Let's see, what's a good example?  Ah, here's one:
> 
> $ gs -q -P- -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sstdout=%stderr 
> -sOutputFile=<something>.pdf <something>.ps
> 
> Again, see?  No quoting.  No case conversion.  Ghostscript sees the 
> command exactly as I typed it and I typed it exactly as I would on a 
> *nix system.
> 
>>
>> So now, how do you invoke program X directly from your own program Y,
>> without going through DCL? For consistency, you have to mimic all the 
>> same
>> misbehaviour of DCL to get the command line in the right format. If you
>> don’t want to do that, then you need some option to tell program X to
>> bypass all that special processing, and just accept the command line as
>> is. So it needs to distinguish between two ways of being invoked: 
>> directly
>> or via DCL!
> 
> Wrong again. There are a number of ways to invoke a program without 
> going through DCL.  Since you seem to be a Linux fan, look up the 
> various exec functions for starters.  (Note, there are other ways).
> 
>>
>>> If I choose to use DCL, DCL does all of the parsing for me and the
>>> nature of the command-line is irrelevant.
>>
>> If you don’t use DCL, then how do you invoke a program that expects 
>> DCL to
>> parse its command line for it? What happens to all of Arne’s lovingly-
>> crafted .CLD files?
> 
> You apparently know as little about VMS as you do programming in 
> general.  The Docs are online.  Go read them.  They will answer your 
> questions.
> 

Which is why people need to stop feeding the troll!!!!

>>
>>> Programs on DEC OSes can invoke other programs directly and
>>> have been able to at least since the days of the PDP-11 ...
>>
>> Yes, and there have been quite a few pitfalls with that, as I mentioned
>> above. Windows suffers from the same drawback, and this has even led to
>> security holes with Windows programs.
> 
> Hmmm, first you tout that invoking programs directly eliminates pitfalls 
> then you claim that doing so causes them.  So, which is it?
> 
> Mark Berryman
> 
> 
>