🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <SHADOW.89Aug13081959@pawl.rpi.edu> shadow@pawl.rpi.edu (Deven T. Corzine) writes:
<addison@pollux.usc.edu (Richard Addison) writes:
<Richard> If I remember correctly, /bin/sh is the default shell for
<Richard> executing scripts unless another shell is specified on the
<Richard> first line.
<
<Yep.

Actually, it depends on the shell you're using. And whether it depends
on the first line, or just the first character, depends on both the
shell & the kernel, as both might take a stab at it.

There have been a number of different ways of dealing with having more
than one command interpreter on Unix. This indicates to me that the
Amiga community ought to find - and implement - a good solution before
it becomes a serious problem. I don't think that adding ARexx to 1.4
will qualify as "a serious problem", so long as either 1) the WShell
mechanism is used, or 2) No mechanism is used, and the "rx" remains.
However, either case would only do as a temporary solution (or
nonsolution, in the second case).

One thing to note is what most Unix shells, and WShell/ARexx, have in
common.  The Unix shells try executing the program you asked it to
run. If that fails because the program isn't an executable, they then
try running it as a script. WShell tries feeding a command to ARexx,
and if that fails, continues through the command search path. The
common feature is the idea of "let this try, and if it fails, go on to
the next thing." ARexx even allows for the specification of "the next
thing to try" as a pointer to a port.

Pushing this to the extreme, you wind up with something similar to the
chain used for dealing with input events. I kind of like this - it
allows the user to tweak priorities, add things to the chain, and so
on, without having to reach in and mangle the code. That kind of thing
is always a nice feature.

Several questions remain: like 1) can we make this cover enough of the
current ways of finding a program, and 2) can we do this "fast
enough." If the answer to either of these is no, then we probably need
to look elsewhere. If the answer to both is yes, then we need to
consider whether RexxMsg is a general enough struct, and what would be
better.

	<mike

P.S. "we" in much of the above of course refers to people getting $'s
from CPM, and not those of us talking about this problem...

--
Love and affection,					Mike Meyer
Of the corporate kind.					mwm@berkeley.edu
It's just belly to belly,				ucbvax!mwm
Never eye to eye.					mwm@ucbjade.BITNET