Re: [ferret_users] inconsistency? in command line parser

[Ansley Manke <ansley.b.manke@xxxxxxxx>]

 Hi Ryo,
Thanks for the report.  Command-line parsing is difficult.  Your example is very helpful, and I see your point; commas in combination with spaces for separating arguments shows some inconsistencies.

Ansley

On 10/1/2010 4:26 PM, Ryo Furue wrote:
> Ferret users and developers,
>
> I was hit by (apparent) inconsistency in command line parsing.
>
> To illustrate the points, I made up two scripts "main" and "sub",
> the former calling the latter.  They are reproduced below and
> also attached to this message.
>
> sub.jnl just prints the three arguments given to it:
>
> !-- BEGIN: sub.jnl ---
> say --($1%EMPTY1%)--($2%EMPTY2%)--($3%EMPTY3%)--
> !-- END: sub.jnl ---
>
> main.jnl is the test script to illustrate the problems:
>
> !-- BEGIN: main.jnl ---
> go sub a b c
> go sub a[y=1] b c
> go sub a, b, c
> go sub a , b , c !! -->  3rd arg. is empty.
>
> !go sub  , b, c !! -->  Error
> go sub a,  , c
> go sub a, b,
>
> go sub a[y=1], b, c !! -->  "a[y=1]," is treated as argument.
>
> go sub a \
>      , b, c
> go sub a, b \
>      , c       !! -->  3rd arg. is empty.
> !-- END: main.jnl ---
>
> The following is the output (Ferret 6.61 on Linux):
>
> --a--b--c--
> --a[y=1]--b--c--
> --a--b--c--
> --a--b--EMPTY3--
> --a--EMPTY2--c--
> --a--b--EMPTY3--
> --a[y=1],--b--c--
> --a--b--c--
> --a--b--EMPTY3--
>
> It seems that the handling of commas has some inconsistency.
>
> I'm not looking for workarounds.  I'm just suggesting that
> this inconsistency be resolved in the future.
>
> Regards,
> Ryo