Howdy, Jussi:
[arg passing]
> As this probably is the suggestion already discussed and
> turned down I would like to hear the reason and a work
> around for us, who use spaces in filenames.
The argument passing scheme for REBOL needs to address two
things: 1) Providing args from command line, of course
and 2) providing an immediately DOable REBOL expression.
With just a string for command line args, the second case
is easy-- just do the system/options/args. In the first
case there are situations where the distinction between
args is unrecoverable, however you can force distinctions
using escaped quotes, eg:
\"first arg\" \"second arg\"
or
{first arg} {second arg}
Using escaped quotes or curly braces on command line args,
you can create needed delimiters that can be broken up in
your script using PARSE, for instance.
If you get a block of separate args in strings then the
result is not easily DOable. The alternative is to have
the args prescanned (essentially the LOAD of the command
line args). The prescan creates a potential for
syntax errors in the command line arguments preventing a
script from running. That's not very advantageous.
In the end, it was decided the best course of action was
to leave it as it is because people COULD make delimiters
using shell escaping measures and what not.
So that's what the reasoning was. Make sense?
-jeff
