Re: Quote file name args to start-process-shell-command?

[David Kastrup]

Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:

>> Cc: Lennart Borgman <address@hidden>,  address@hidden
>> From: David Kastrup <address@hidden>
>> Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 09:44:14 +0200
>> 
>> >   Remaining arguments are strings passed as additional arguments
>> >   for COMMAND.
>> >
>> > There's no requirement here that each one of the "&rest ARGS" be a
>> > separate command-line argument, is there?
>> 
>> Then it would be completely pointless to allow several ARGS.
>
> It's not pointless, it can be useful if the command line is
> generated piecewise.  start-process-shell-command is not system(3).

Then the question is why it should behave like it.

The code says:

(defun start-process-shell-command (name buffer &rest args)
  "Start a program in a subprocess.  Return the process object for it.

[...]

Remaining arguments are the arguments for the command.
Wildcards and redirection are handled as usual in the shell.

[...]"

  (cond
   ((eq system-type 'vax-vms)
    (apply 'start-process name buffer args))
   ;; We used to use `exec' to replace the shell with the command,
   ;; but that failed to handle (...) and semicolon, etc.
   (t
    (start-process name buffer shell-file-name shell-command-switch
                   (mapconcat 'identity args " ")))))

Clearly, ARGS is (except on VMS) _not_ a list of separate arguments,
but rather strings pasted together with spaces.

So I don't understand how to apply your remark
"start-process-shell-command is not system(3).".
`start-process-shell-command' certainly is coded in a manner that
_strongly_ suggests it to be quite close to system(3) which is
documented as

SYNOPSIS
        #include <stdlib.h>

        int system(const char *command);

DESCRIPTION
        system() executes a command  specified in command by calling
        /bin/sh -c  command, and returns after the  command has been
        completed.  During execution of the command, SIGCHLD will be
        blocked, and SIGINT and SIGQUIT will be ignored.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum