Article View: comp.bugs.4bsd
Article #488Re: Arguments to 4.3BSD "sh -c" commands are mishandled
From: Karl Heuer
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 1986 03:52
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 1986 03:52
14 lines
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1342 bytes
[Braces appearing below are used for quoting. --kwzh]
In article <7296@elsie.UUCP> ado@elsie.UUCP (Arthur David Olson) writes:
>Type in the command { sh -c 'echo $*' a b c d } and note the incorrect
>output: { b c d }.
"That's not a bug, it's a feature!" :-) "a" is being assigned to $0. If you
don't care about $0, use a placeholder: { sh -c 'echo $*' sh a b c d }*.
It would be nice if this were documented, though. I've never seen a man page
for sh that mentions the possibility of giving arguments to a { sh -c }, and
it's been implemented slightly differently in various incarnations.
Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint
*Do not use "-" as the placeholder; argv[0][0]=='-' is magic!
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Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!ima!haddock!karl From: karl@haddock.UUCP (Karl Heuer) Newsgroups: comp.bugs.4bsd Subject: Re: Arguments to 4.3BSD "sh -c" commands are mishandled Message-ID: <201@haddock.UUCP> Date: Mon, 15-Dec-86 22:52:40 EST Article-I.D.: haddock.201 Posted: Mon Dec 15 22:52:40 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 17-Dec-86 04:44:21 EST References: <7296@elsie.UUCP> Reply-To: karl@haddock.ISC.COM.UUCP (Karl Heuer) Organization: Interactive Systems, Boston Lines: 14 Summary: Disagree