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

FYI, this bug will be fixed in CFEngine 3.24.  For more info check out this 
blog post https://cfengine.com/blog/2024/change-in-behavior-arglist/ Thanks 
for reporting it.

On Wednesday, September 20, 2023 at 12:39:22 PM UTC+2 Lars Erik Wik wrote:

> Glad to hear! Thanks for sharing your solution with the clever use of 
> maplist.
>
> On Wednesday, September 20, 2023 at 12:08:10 PM UTC+2 
> [email protected] wrote:
>
>> Lars and Mike,
>>
>> Thanks for your replies on this.  Appreciated and useful!
>>
>> Given an incoming, pre-existing "@(lines)" slist that includes elements 
>> which potentially contain embedded spaces, and following Lars' useful 
>> suggestion, I have inserted:
>>
>>   vars:
>>     any::
>>       "lines_q" slist => maplist("'$(this)'", "@(lines)");
>>
>> which simply puts additional quotes around each.  I then use that new 
>> "@(lines_q)" from that point onwards.
>>
>> (As Mike hints, this isn't a full, general-purpose solution.  But for the 
>> present it looks sufficient in this particular, relatively simple, 
>> instance.)
>>
>>
>> -- David Lee
>>
>> On Friday, 15 September 2023 at 17:06:31 UTC+1 [email protected] wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks, Lars!
>>>
>>> Side note about nested quoting, probably the cleanest and most flexible 
>>> syntax I've seen for nested quoting when it would otherwise get really 
>>> hairy, is that used by Postgres: 
>>> https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-syntax-lexical.html#SQL-SYNTAX-DOLLAR-QUOTING
>>>
>>> --Mike Weilgart
>>>
>>> On Fri, Sep 15, 2023 at 2:28 AM 'Lars Erik Wik' via help-cfengine <
>>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> 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 
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> -- 
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>>>> .
>>>>
>>>

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