Re: "commands: arglist" mismatch between behaviour and documentation?

Hi all

Thanks for shedding a light on this issue again. I've linked the issues and 
pushed the CFE-2724 ticket to the top of the backlog. As a temporary 
workaround you can use nested quoting, e.g.:

```
$ cat ~/test.cf
bundle agent __main__
{
  files:
    "/tmp/test.py"
      content => "import sys; print(*(arg for arg in sys.argv), sep='\n')";
  commands:
    "/usr/bin/python3 /tmp/test.py"
      args => "two `three four`",
      arglist => { "five", "'six seven'" };
}
$ /var/cfengine/bin/cf-agent -Kf ~/test.cf 
  notice: Q: "...in/python3 /tmp": /tmp/test.py
Q: "...in/python3 /tmp": two
Q: "...in/python3 /tmp": three four
Q: "...in/python3 /tmp": five
Q: "...in/python3 /tmp": six seven
```

On Friday, September 15, 2023 at 6:01:50 AM UTC+2 [email protected] wrote:

> Hi David,
>
> I thought this sounded familiar, and indeed, I reported the same bug five 
> years ago!  https://northerntech.atlassian.net/browse/CFE-2869
>
> And it was reported a year before that as well: 
> https://northerntech.atlassian.net/browse/CFE-2724
>
> And David, I see that you've now successfully reported the issue as 
> https://northerntech.atlassian.net/browse/CFE-4253, also.
>
> To Northern Tech: I suggest that the code should be fixed for a future 
> CFEngine version, AND that the documentation should be fixed for all 
> existing CFEngine versions.  Should be modified to better describe what the 
> code actually does, and then a note should be inserted in a little text box 
> for the benefit of those rereading the docs who've read it before, saying 
> something like, "NOTE: This documentation previously implied that the 
> elements of arglist were each treated as separate arguments and could 
> contain spaces or quotes; however the behavior of the code did not match 
> this documentation, so the documentation has been updated.  A future 
> CFEngine version may modify this behavior; see (link) for the bug tracking 
> info."
>
> Or just quietly update the doc to be more precisely descriptive, since it 
> doesn't actually *say* how the arglist is currently processed, it just 
> implies it with the "particularly useful" statement.
>
> The documentation fix should be fairly trivial and I submit there's really 
> no good reason to leave inaccurate documentation there to trip people up, 
> even if the coding fix takes a while to prioritize and accomplish.
>
> ...Hmm, interesting, I think there is currently no way to have explicit 
> control over how CFEngine handles the whitespace splitting in a commands 
> promise...maybe an attribute for this could be added, with the default set 
> to be the current behavior, for backward compatibility.  Maybe call it 
> "argsplitting" and default it to "whitespace" (IF that is an accurate 
> description of current code behavior; I think it is), and have another 
> option "none" which would result in *args* being treated as one single 
> argument; and *arglist* being treated as exactly as many arguments as 
> appear as elements in that list.
>
> Best,
> --Mike Weilgart
> On Thursday, September 14, 2023 at 7:26:03 AM UTC-7 
> [email protected] wrote:
>
>> I appear no longer to have login access to be able to report issues.  
>> (Previous issues with my involvement include CFE-3020, CFE-1655, CFE-2908, 
>> etc.)  I'm trying to regain that access, but it is not proving easy!  If 
>> that can be restored then I can report the issue.
>>
>> Otherwise, could you log the issue for me?
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> -- David Lee
>> On Wednesday, 13 September 2023 at 14:55:30 UTC+1 
>> [email protected] wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 2023-09-13 at 06:38 -0700, [email protected] wrote: 
>>> > Using 3.18.5 community edition on RHEL9; also 3.15 on RHEL7 and RHEL8 
>>> > 
>>> > Documentation 
>>> https://docs.cfengine.com/docs/3.18/reference-promise-types-commands.html 
>>> gives the example: 
>>> > ------------------------------------------------- 
>>> > commands: "/bin/echo one" args => "two three", arglist => { "four", 
>>> "five" }; 
>>> > So in the example above the command would be: 
>>> >  /bin/echo one two three four five 
>>> > ------------------------------------------------- 
>>> > 
>>> > It also states:------------------------------------------------- 
>>> > That's particularly useful when there are embedded spaces and quotes 
>>> in your arguments... 
>>> > ------------------------------------------------- 
>>> > 
>>> > So I'm trying to build something, specifically requiring that 
>>> "embedded spaces" claim.  But I hit a problem, so strip it down to a 
>>> proof-of-concept script: 
>>> > ------------------------------------------------- 
>>> > #! /bin/bash 
>>> > echo "argcount: $#" 
>>> > for (( i=1 ; i<=$#; i++)) 
>>> > do     
>>> >   echo "${i}:${!i}" 
>>> > done 
>>> > ------------------------------------------------- 
>>> > 
>>> > At the command line I verify the script: 
>>> > ------------------------------------------------- 
>>> > $ ./modules/printargs A B "C with spaces" D 
>>> > argcount: 4 
>>> > 1:A 
>>> > 2:B 
>>> > 3:C with spaces 
>>> > 4:D 
>>> > $ 
>>> > ------------------------------------------------- 
>>> > (Four arguments, the third being three words with embedded spaces.) 
>>> > 
>>> > I then run it from within our CFEngine framework: 
>>> > ------------------------------------------------- 
>>> >   commands: 
>>> >     any:: 
>>> >       "$(gcom.modulesdir)/printargs" 
>>> >         arglist => { "A", "B", "C with spaces", "D" }; 
>>> > ------------------------------------------------- 
>>> > 
>>> > But instead of receiving four arguments, it receives six: here's the 
>>> CFE "inform" output: 
>>> > ------------------------------------------------- 
>>> >     info: Executing 'no timeout' ... '[...]/modules/printargs A B C 
>>> with spaces D' 
>>> >   notice: Q: ".../printargs A B ": argcount: 6 
>>> > Q: ".../printargs A B ": 1:A 
>>> > Q: ".../printargs A B ": 2:B 
>>> > Q: ".../printargs A B ": 3:C 
>>> > Q: ".../printargs A B ": 4:with 
>>> > Q: ".../printargs A B ": 5:spaces 
>>> > Q: ".../printargs A B ": 6:D 
>>> >     info: Last 7 quoted lines were generated by promiser 
>>> > ------------------------------------------------- 
>>> >  That useful "embedded spaces" claim in the documentation seems to be 
>>> being ignored. 
>>> > 
>>> > Is the bug/problem: 
>>> >  * in the code 
>>> >  * or in the documentation 
>>> >  * or in my interpretation of the documentation 
>>> > Help appreciated 
>>> Definitely looks like a bug in the CFEngine code to me. I'm just 
>>> surprised there's no failing test 
>>> for this. Please report the issue at 
>>> https://northerntech.atlassian.net/browse/CFE 
>>>
>>> Thanks! 
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Vratislav 
>>>
>>

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "help-cfengine" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected].
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/help-cfengine/7f369e0e-4b13-460a-a613-5538835a628dn%40googlegroups.com.