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Re: something strange with rsh/ssh + bash/tcsh is happening. Please advise



On Wed, Dec 28, 2005 at 02:13:44PM -0500, Yaroslav Halchenko wrote:

||  Thank you Vincent,
||
||  But I am still wondering...
||
||  > So it runs the command /bin/echo with $1=1111.  However, /bin/echo
||  > doesn't use $1, and only prints an empty line which you see.
||  so you mean that in case
||  *> rsh localhost /bin/sh -c 'hostname -i'
||  ravana
||
||  hostname doesn't have really *argv == "-i" but rather environment variable
||  $1 is set to "-i", that is why hostname just provides me with a hostname.
||  Did I understand you correctly?

In this case, hostname would not be getting the -i argument. What does
happen to the -i is a bit unclear. As it stands, I suspect it will be
interpreted as the "interactive" option to /bin/sh.[1]

||  What is then proper way to run remote complex command ("bla1 -i; bla2 -k")
||  or "pipe" via ssh/rsh? It seems that I need a bit of tutorial after all the
||  years :-)

Pass only a single command argument to rsh/ssh:
    rsh localhost '/bin/sh -c "hostname -i"'
This is a single string, but with "" embedded, so the remote $SHELL
combines hostname and -i into one string.

On Wed, Dec 28, 2005 at 08:40:41PM +0100, Frank K?ster wrote:

||  vzweije@sense.xs4all.nl (Vincent Zweije) wrote:
||
||  > It's not a bug. It's a feature. :)
||  >
||  [...]
||  >     /bin/sh   -c '/bin/echo' '1111'
||  >     /bin/tcsh -c '/bin/echo' '1111'
||  >     /bin/tcsh -c '/bin/echo' '1111'

These shells read their commands from the -c argument.  There's nothing
more in there than /bin/echo.  If there is a $1 in there, the shell will
substitute 1111 for it.[1]

||  > So it runs the command /bin/echo with $1=1111.  However, /bin/echo
||  > doesn't use $1, and only prints an empty line which you see.
||
||  Aha.  So what does echo use?  When I type "/bin/echo foo bar" at the
||  prompt, it's also the shell that hands over the line to echo, and it
||  does that after splitting the lines into words - so where is the
||  difference?  (I see it, it's on my screen, but why?)

When you type "/bin/echo foo bar", your shell reads a command from the
line you type. The arguments foo and bar are in there.

Ciao.                                                           Vincent.

[1] I may be mistaken. If I read the shell's (well, bash') manual
    correctly, the 1111 is actually the first non-option argument,
    which means the shell should be interpreting it as a script to read
    and execute. However, it's already reading commands from the -c
    argument, so I'm getting confused. It seems some shells are getting
    confused too. Whatever. It's not an echo argument.
-- 
Vincent Zweije <zweije@xs4all.nl>    | "If you're flamed in a group you
<http://www.xs4all.nl/~zweije/>      | don't read, does anybody get burnt?"
[Xhost should be taken out and shot] |            -- Paul Tomblin on a.s.r.

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