Bug#637001: allow xterm to run a user-specified command on some event (e.g. to open a URL)
On 2011-08-07 13:11:50 -0400, Thomas Dickey wrote:
> On Sun, 7 Aug 2011, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> >xterm should have a way to run a user-specified shell command
> >on some event. For instance, xterm could define a new action
> >run-command(command [, ...?]). The command would get context
> >information, either as an argument or in standard input, such
> >as what is under the mouse pointer (so that the user doesn't
> >need to make a selection first).
>
> That's off in that gray area where (disregarding the double standards
> applied to gnome-terminal, konsole, etc), the security team is likely to
> limit or suppress the feature. Lacking some discussion with those people,
> yes it's a simple feature, but not certain you'd get it in Debian.
I don't see what security problem there could be. Note that the
command would be specified by the user, so that everything in under
his control. Only its argument or standard input would come from
the terminal, but it's up to the command to check its input, as
usual.
Of course the user must know what he's doing, but this is also true
when copy-pasting to a terminal with a shell (which can actually be
more dangerous as arbitrary commands can be run).
--
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.net> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.net/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <http://www.vinc17.net/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Arénaire project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)
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