Re: Spaces in path names

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Roger,

* Roger While wrote on Mon, Jan 16, 2006 at 12:29:39PM CET:
> OK. I did not look at the actual usage of this example,
> but what is definitely true is that the resultant command
> passed to gcc/linker whatever, must have the quotes
> ala. -L"my space dir". I think we agree on that.

No, we don't.  I think you are misunderstanding something here.
If you do this:

  gcc -o foo foo.o -L"my space dir" -lbar

then your system generates a command line for gcc that contains in argv
these elements (elements separated by newlines):

gcc
-o
foo
foo.o
-Lmy space dir
-lbar
NULL

The quoting is merely to instruct the shell not to do word-splitting at
this point.  Please read a good tutorial about Bourne-like shell command
language.

You could try this small shell script to see this for yourself:
--- cut here ---
#! /bin/sh
for arg
do
  printf "Argument given: '%s'\n" "$arg"
done
--- cut here ---

Call it with -L"foo bar" or "-Lfoo bar" as argument.

> On an aside note, it seems that autoconf is also
> busted here. Specifically autotest is blown
> eg.

Oh, there are many many instances all over all of the autotools where
you will encounter issues.  One reason why we're trying to tell you that
it is far easier to work around it on your side.

Cheers,
Ralf