woody%Juliet.Caltech.Edu@cit-hamlet.ARPA (03/03/86)
> [ Wayne Throop ] >> [ Carl Kuck ] >> 2. Command-line arguments are a part of C. >> Ref: K&R, chapter 5.11 > > Again, you don't catch on to subtleties. The phrase is > "command-line arguments *or* parameters. In fact, careful reading of > K&R convinces me that C may be correctly implemented on systems that > (shudder) *have* *no* *commands* *or* *command* *lines*, let alone > "command-line arguments." Like the Macintosh, where (despite Apple Computers) C seems to be the de-facto programming language. Under the Finder (read: Shell), running a program is done by double-clicking the icon representing the program with the mouse, and arguments may be passed by shift-clicking the appropriate file icons before double-clicking the program icon. Command lines? What command lines? Do you see any command lines? - William Woody NET Woody%Romeo@Hamlet.Caltech.Edu USNAIL 1-54 Lloyd, Caltech / Pasadena, CA 91126
simon@simon_pc.UUCP (Simon Shapiro) (03/04/86)
All this arguing about what did K&R mean here or there reminds me of a Talmud study, with one exception. The Rabi is still alive! Maybe Mr. Ritchie can tell us what he ment when he said what he said about what he said (Command line argument passing) instead of all this (very amusing) argument about arguments? I refer this to Mr. Dennis Ritchie and not to Mr. Brian Kernigham only because I saw a recent postig by the first (so he must be listening to all of this) but did not catch the later's name on this network. Simon.
david@ztivax.UUCP (03/05/86)
Modern Arguments to main() >[W.Woody] > Like the Macintosh, where (despite Apple Computers) C seems to be the >de-facto programming language. Under the Finder (read: Shell), running a >program is done by double-clicking the icon representing the program with >the mouse, and arguments may be passed by shift-clicking the appropriate >file icons before double-clicking the program icon. Command lines? What >command lines? Do you see any command lines? THIS IS A GOOD POINT!! I am currently porting UNIX fuctionality (nee filter tools, cmd interpreter) onto a really nice user interface. This things got windows and mouse, all that stuff, but more: You can point at stuff (text in a file, program names, icons, etc) and use it as stdin/out. Right now these capabilities are only available in the systems own one-off programming language. Soon, it will be available in C. WHAT I NEED IS YOUR IDEAS: Who has good ideas on a C standard which would allow "command line arguments" to be expanded to include nicer things, like text from anywhere (within a file, db, ...), or like ???? Should this be left to the "shell" or window manager (or finder or ... ) ?? Perhaps, but remember, one of the things which makes C tools so easy to write is that the interface main(argc,argv) is so intuitive for someone working within a command line oriented world. If the world is not command line oriented, but icon oriented, the mapping is no longer intuitive, and perhaps the further development of simple tools will be thwarted... mail or respond, at your option... David E. Smyth Cubitech Corporation seismo!unido!ztivax!david
peter@baylor.UUCP (03/07/86)
> Like the Macintosh, where (despite Apple Computers) C seems to be the > de-facto programming language. Under the Finder (read: Shell), running a > program is done by double-clicking the icon representing the program with > the mouse, and arguments may be passed by shift-clicking the appropriate > file icons before double-clicking the program icon. Command lines? What > command lines? Do you see any command lines? Yes. The "command line" is the list of files involved, and a good implementation of 'C' will have the run_time library load up argv with the values before calling main(). Are there any such things? -- -- Peter da Silva -- UUCP: ...!shell!{baylor,graffiti}!peter; MCI: PDASILVA; CIS: 70216,1076
gwyn@brl-smoke.UUCP (03/09/86)
There have been articles recently pointing out that there is no "command line" in an icon-driven environment. I believe some of the articles have missed the point about argv (which was the original topic of discussion). According to X3J11, there are two possible conforming C environments: "hosted", which must be able to provide program arguments (NOT repeat NOT "command line" arguments) and receive exit status, and "free-standing", which need not even have a main() function, let alone program arguments. It is of course possible to implement C in an icon-oriented environment as a "free-standing" implementation. Generally, one will need special library routines to access data objects anyway in such an environment, so transportability is not a big issue in this case. Process interface characteristics will depend on the specific operating environment in a non-portable way. Another possibility is to provide a "hosted" implementation in the icon-oriented environment. In this case, there must be an automatic mapping of icon-selected entities into character strings for the argv array supplied to main(). This may or may not fit into existing icon interface schemes. All this means is that it may not be possible to advertise a conforming "hosted" implementation of C in such an environment. I see no problem with that; if the UNIX-like software tool model doesn't fit, don't use it. If you're going to write programs for an object-oriented environment, how about using an object-oriented programming language rather than C. Better yet, how about generalizing a la Alan Kay to an agent-oriented environment with an appropriate user interface. Other than for implementing the environment itself, one might then be able to do without "programming languages" altogether.
woody%Juliet.Caltech.Edu@cit-hamlet.ARPA (03/09/86)
For those who may be interested in such things as Icon-driven
environments, this is what the Macintosh computer does under the Macintosh
Megamax C compiler: (other implementations may vary)
When you double click a program icon, the file name of the program
gets passed to the C program through argc/argv; when you shift click some
documents before double clicking a program icon (thereby telling the program
to use those documents), the names of the documents get passed to the
C program through argc/argv--one document name for every element in argv[].
And when you shift click some documents, select a program, and select
the "Print" option from one of the Finder (read: Macintosh shell) menus,
the argument "-p" gets passed to the C program in argv[].
So, the Macintosh does support passing arguments to the program;
however, it's not as flexible as a command line entry under the Unix shell
where command line arguments may be just about any arbitrary string.
- William Woody
NET Woody%Romeo@Hamlet.Caltech.Edu
USNAIL 1-54 Lloyd, Caltech / Pasadena, CA 91126