>From: Richard Zidlicky

> All Unix shells provide the syntax very nicely using backticks (backquotes?),
> for example
>  mkdir /lib/modules/`uname -r`

Well yes, command substitution is a useful and flexible feature that would be a way to 
do it (and much more besides), but not the same as what was originally requested - 
simply to have the contents of a file substituted onto the command line.  But I agree, 
there would be no need to have a special syntax to do just that if we had fullblown 
command substitution.

>>But if all this could be built into the EX command in a 
>>future version of SMSQ/E, then it would be a different matter 
>>entirely...
>this would not improve much, it would still be only accessible 
>from basic and not c68 programs. In SBasic you already have ways to
>build command line strings very flexibly anyway..

True, one way in SBASIC would be to build your command line in a ramdisk file and then 
execute it.
In C programs it is quite simple if you set up an array of pointers to character 
strings which you initialize from the file. You can pass the pointer to the array in 
the call to execute the program.  (I haven't written a C program that uses that 
technique for a long time so I can't remember the exact syntax, and I can't look at 
Unix man pages until I get home.) 

>Most of this can be done with xargs as well ...
I haven't looked at xargs yet, in fact I've played with Unix very little since I've 
had the Q40.  I must try to find the time to install it on a spare PC here at work - 
won't be allowed to connect it to the network unfortunately.

Ian.

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Richard Zidlicky
>[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
>Sent: 22 April 2002 19:48
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Re: [ql-users] c68 question
>
>
>On Mon, Apr 22, 2002 at 09:38:35AM +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> I've not encountered any Unix shells that offer such a 
>syntax, or any way of doing it from a program.  I believe the 
>cpio and tar Unix utilities support file-lists as an 
>alternative to specifying the individual filenames on the 
>command line, because the length of command line could easily 
>become very long; but this is implemented by their own code, 
>not the command line parser.
>
>All Unix shells provide the syntax very nicely using backticks 
>(backquotes?),
>for example
>  mkdir /lib/modules/`uname -r`
>
>Most of this can be done with xargs as well so I would think 
>the benefit
>of implementing this feature would not outweigh the 
>disadvantages, mainly
>code size and complexity.
>Also, xargs is a separate program so it works in any shell or 
>SBasic once 
>it has been implemented.
>
>> But if all this could be built into the EX command in a 
>future version of SMSQ/E, then it would be a different matter 
>entirely...
>
>this would not improve much, it would still be only accessible 
>from basic
>and not c68 programs. In SBasic you already have ways to build command
>line strings very flexibly anyway..
>
>Richard
>

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