Per Olofsson wrote: > Again, why not simply > > $EDITOR "$1"
Because that is a weird hybrid of two behaviors: 1. "$EDITOR" "$1" does not respect shell metacharacters at all, so if you use, e.g., EDITOR='emacs -nw', then it will look for a binary with that name. Advantage: can be used by C programs directly using exec(). 2. sh -c '<the editor> "$1"' - filename respects _all_ shell metacharacters, including pipes, variable expansions, redirections etc. 3. $EDITOR "$1" respects only the shell metacharacters that have to do with word splitting (if I remember correctly). It is hard to use from C programs --- I think you have to first export EDITOR, then run sh -c '$EDITOR "$1"' - filename > Yeah, putting metacharacters in a variable is asking for trouble anyway. On e.g. Windows it is common to have filenames with spaces. It can also be convenient to pass options with commands like this. Anyway, luckily it is always possible to get whatever effect is desired with a well-placed script. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
