Re: Reminder: $EDITOR with spaces?

Mark Benedetto King <bking@answerfriend.com> writes:

> No, you're wrong. The semantics are different. If the administrator
> expects execl() semantics they will be very suprised (and perhaps
> compromised) when they get system() semantics.

"execl() semantics" would mean not treating the space character as a
special character at all. So either you'd have to pass an array (not
possible with environment variables; they are just strings) or not be
able to give parameters to the program at all. The "split on space"
thing that has been suggested is neither "execl() semantics", nor
"system() semantics". So if somebody was really expecting execl()
semantics (which I doubt), they'd still get a surprise.

> All that said, +1 on using system() from me, too, because
> it *is* a lot more powerful than execl(), and because it's
> what people expect from $EDITOR.

Exactly. You are more likely to break peoples expectations by trying
to play big brother than by simply doing what everybody else does.

  // Marcus

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Received on Mon Apr 29 20:21:16 2002