Subject: Re: argc (omitted argv[0] in count, corrected) From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 2000/06/22 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3170681795858375@naggum.no> * Joe Marshall <jmarshall@alum.mit.edu> | That would likely be an incorrect `solution'. Quite the reverse of what we want, actually. It's a design flaw that arguments to programs aren't typed and that quoting, etc, is stripped by the time you get it in the program. The effort required of a shell script to ensure that random arguments to random programs are not misinterpreted as options is distinctily non-trivial. | If you did this unconditionally, then it would be impossible for the | calling process to pass in an argument that contains that particular | field separator. This occurs way too often in Windows, where people | like to put spaces in filenames, but is not unknown to happen in | other OS's. The user tendency to restrict the names of files to whatever is convenient to type in the shell is a symptom of the design flaw. Files should be named whatever the user thinks is descriptive. We have thoroughly abandoned the six- or eight-character filename. #:Erik -- If this is not what you expected, please alter your expectations.