From: mark@theberrymans.com   
      
   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=.pdf .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.   
      
   >   
   >> 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   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
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