Re: zargs doesn't work reliably

["Mikael Magnusson" <mikachu@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 8/18/06, Bart Schaefer <schaefer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Aug 17,  8:17pm, Mikael Magnusson wrote:
> }
> } > There are approximately eleventeen zillion unix/linux commands that
> } > break given those file names, including rm, ls, and cp, so I'm not
> } > going to get particularly worked up about zargs behaving similarly.
> }
> } % ls -l -- *
>
> Yes, and you used an explicit "--" to tell ls that there might be "--"
> in its argument list; it would have failed if you did not.  The same
> goes for "zargs -e".
>
> } Would this be possible?
> } zargs '[options]' 'command [initial-args]' [input-args]
>
> I'm not going to agree with you about any scheme that breaks congruence
> with the way xargs accepts its command and initial-args.  The whole point
> of zargs is to mimic xargs as closely as possible.
>
> } Sorry, I should have looked in the manual. In my defense zargs --help
> } was so helpful that i didn't suspect it left anything useful out and i
> } did say i was tired :). Thanks for the pointers.
>
> Thanks for the compliment about the help.  It does say fairly early:
>
> Options:
> --eof[=eof-str], -e[eof-str]
>     Change the end-of-input-args string from "--" to eof-str.  If
>     given as --eof=, an empty argument is the end; as --eof or -e,
>     with no (or an empty) eof-str, all arguments are input-args.

After reading this a couple of times and trying some different
commands i came up with this working command:
% zargs --eof= -- * '' ls -d --
--  -+

> On Aug 18,  6:12am, Mikael Magnusson wrote:
> }
> } > What if you need an initial-arg that contains a space?
> }
> } I don't quite understand the question... zargs '' 'touch file\ with\
> } spaces' /tmp/*
> } or zargs '' 'touch "file with spaces"' /tmp/*
>
> What if you have one initial-arg with a space, one with a backslash, one
> with a single quote, and one with a double-quote?
>
> The input-args already come to you "quoted" via the globbing mechansim.
> It's much easier to pick something (including empty string, see the help
> snippet above) that won't appear in the input-args than it is to quote
> your way around oddities in the initial-args.

I didn't mean to sound like the current way is wrong and i have all
the answers, although it might have sounded a bit like that; i just
meant to make suggestions or ask if things would work that way.
Thanks again for your helpful help, and in the meantime i have another
question :). (->new thread)

--
Mikael Magnusson