Re: gdb hijacks my argument list

["John B. Matthews" <nospam@nospam.invalid>]

In article <hi03m6$fsl$1@news.albasani.net>,
 Leslie <jlturriff@centurytel.net> wrote:

> John B. Matthews wrote:
> 
> > In article <hhvlc7$nc8$1@news.albasani.net>,
> >  Leslie <jlturriff@centurytel.net> wrote:
> > 
> >> Niklas Holsti wrote:
> >> 
> >> > gdb --args testtoken ' (name testtoken endchar \) <
> >> > > testtoken.adb | (trace) count lines|cons '
> >> 
> >> I get exactly the same result as before:
> > 
> > This older version of gdb lacks the --args feature,

Looking again, my gdb has an --args option; it just doesn't work. :-)

> > but `set args` and `show args` seem to work. Some of the tokens in 
> > your arg string appear to be shell operators and commands. You may 
> > have to evaluate the string in a shell and feed the result to args.
>
> The single quotes should deactivate the "specialness" of those
> operators.  In any case, the entire string is being rejected,
> not just parts of it, and no substitutions are made by shell.

You're right about the quotes, but I was mistaken about shell expansion. 
It seems gdb uses the environments $SHELL (or /bin/sh) to expand args:

<http://sourceware.org/gdb/current/onlinedocs/gdb/Arguments.html>

(gdb) set args $((7 * 6))
(gdb) r
Starting program: argtest $((7 * 6))
42

> However, I must say 'thank you very much,' because 'set args'
> does the trick.
> 
> Thank you very much.

Excellent!

-- 
John B. Matthews
trashgod at gmail dot com
<http://sites.google.com/site/drjohnbmatthews>