[Portland] Bug#574131: xdg-utils: xdg-email never launchs a mua if desktop is not gnome neither kde neither xfce

[Per Olofsson]

Hi,

2010-10-24 00:22, Jonathan Nieder skrev:
> 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.

No good.

> 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.

It might also leave a shell process hanging around. So maybe

sh -c "exec $EDITOR \"\$1\"" - "$filename"

?

> 
> 3. $EDITOR "$1"
> 
> respects only the shell metacharacters that have to do with
> word splitting (if I remember correctly).

In fact, it seems to only support word splitting. No quotes or anything
else.

> It is hard to use from
> C programs --- I think you have to first export EDITOR, then run
> 
> sh -c '$EDITOR "$1"' - filename

OK. So maybe option 2 is the best one then.

>> 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.

It's nice to be able to say EDITOR="emacs -nw" I think. I'm not sure how
important it is to be able to quote spaces and such though. Still, if
option 2 is easier to implement from C programs, perhaps it's the best
option.

-- 
Pelle