Re: How should we handle filenames containing spaces

[Fernando Nasser <fnasser at redhat dot com>]

Andrew Cagney wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> >
> >   I have a modified version of the gdb 4.17 debugger built for VxWorks
> > PPC, and found a flaw in the "load" command. The syntax of this command
> > is
> >
> >           load <filename> <server filename>
> >
> > The problem appears when one of the filenames contain some spaces.
> > I am about to go and fix the code, but I am wondering how GDB handles
> > this sort of problem from the user's point of view.
> >
> > I checked a few other commands that are also taking a filename as an
> > argument, but all of them worked because they take only one argument,
> > and therefore do not parse it.
> >

Yes, people created the commands with that limitation in mind.


> > My proposal would be to allow the use of double-quotes. Would that be
> > in line with GDB's way of handling these sorts of issues?
> 

I am in favor of double-quotes for handling these cases as it is an
accepted practice on Unix-like systems.

As Andrew mentions below, this may interfere with completion
(although I think completion can be easily fixed to handle file names
that start with double quotes if it is not doing it already).

Eli?


> BTW, Eli's recently being tweeking commands so that some of them know
> that they take a file as an argument (I don't remember the details).
> That way <tab> would file name expand and add in quotes automatically.
> 
> As to your question, I suspect GDB is going to have to bite the bullet
> and, for cases like this, drop the hack where GDB could just pick up the
> rest of the line.
> 
> Fernando?
> 
> Andrew

-- 
Fernando Nasser
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