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From: sinclair@dis.strath.ac.uk (Duncan Sinclair)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.user-friendly,comp.unix.solaris,comp.unix.programmer,comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.aux,comp.unix.bsd,comp.unix.aix
Subject: Re: Shell wars
Date: 6 Sep 1994 11:36:09 GMT
Organization: University of Strathclyde Computer Centre
Lines: 39
Distribution: inet
Message-ID: <34hk79$l83@rockall.cc.strath.ac.uk>
References: <33af70$8rd@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> <ROCKWELL.94Sep2081402@nova.umd.edu> <34d3f2$ca@sprocket.csv.warwick.ac.uk> <ROCKWELL.94Sep4164530@nova.umd.edu> <34eppt$919@sprocket.csv.warwick.ac.uk>
Reply-To: sinclair@dis.strath.ac.uk
NNTP-Posting-Host: mull.dis.strath.ac.uk
In <34eppt$919@sprocket.csv.warwick.ac.uk> cudcv@csv.warwick.ac.uk (Rob McMahon) writes:
>In article <ROCKWELL.94Sep4164530@nova.umd.edu>, rockwell@nova.umd.edu (Raul
>Deluth Miller) writes:
>>. >lpr `set | egrep \^lpargs | cut -d= -f2-`
>>
>>. Sorry, it doesn't work. This splits all the arguments at white
>>. space (returning 9 arguments "x" "y" "z" "x" "y" "z" "x" "y" "z"
>>. instead of 3 "x y z" "x y z" "x y z" in the example. Using quotes:
>>
>>Sorry, I don't normally worry about that issue. Try
>>
>>eval lpr `set | egrep \^lpargs | cut -d= -f2- | while read l; do echo
>> \"$l\"; done`
>Still doesn't work. I now get the 9 arguments '"x' 'y' 'z"' '"x' 'y' 'z"'
>'"x' 'y' 'z"'.
Indeed, the bourne shell has problems with preserving quoting
in arguments passed between programs. The "$@" hack was invented
specifically to address this problem, but it is not a total solution.
Much better to stop this {k,ba,}sh vs {t,}csh bickering and using
a shell like zsh or rc where the problem just doesn't occur.
In zsh:
foo="x y z"
lpargs=($foo $foo $foo)
lpr $lpargs
Will work - no mess, no fuss.
Regards,
--
Duncan Sinclair | sinclair@dis.strath.ac.uk | sinclair@dcs.gla.ac.uk
--- Would the *real* UNIX Operating System please stand up. ---