Filenames with leading minus symbol issue

[Vortex]

Hello,

Poasm,Polink and Porc does not accept a leading - symbol in the filenames :

Code Select Expand

C:\PellesC\bin\poasm.exe /AIA32 "-sample.asm"
POASM: warning: Unrecognized option '/sample.asm'.
Pelles Macro Assembler, Version 13.00.11

Code Select Expand

C:\PellesC\bin\polink.exe /SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE "-sample.obj" msvcrt.lib
POLINK: warning: Unrecognized option '/sample.obj'; ignored.
POLINK: fatal error: No output file specified.
Reported by Polink Version 13.00.0

Code Select Expand

\PellesC\bin\porc.exe "-sample.rc"
PORC: fatal error: Unrecognized option /sample.rc.
Reported by Porc Version 13.00.0

[Pelle]

This is really by design. Both /option and -option is allowed, and supporting -filename would require much more code for a basically non-existing case.

[Stefan Pendl]

How about introducing the "--" switch that signals the end of the parameters?
Many Unix utilities support this.

[TimoVJL]

That issue was about checking douple quote in commandline parser for future use.
A silly filename case with switch char as first char in filename.

So solution is simple: don't ever use that char as first char in filename

Code Select Expand

>cl.exe -c "-test.c"
Microsoft (R) C/C++ Optimizing Compiler Version 19.33.31630 for x86
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

cl : Command line warning D9002 : ignoring unknown option '-test.c'
cl : Command line error D8003 : missing source filename


[Vortex]

Hi Pelle,

Thanks for the explanation, it's OK. No any leading - symbol to name files.

[Pelle]

How about introducing the "--" switch that signals the end of the parameters?
Many Unix utilities support this.

Not many Windows command-line tools, though (AFAIK).

[Pelle]

All/most PO*.EXE command-line tools use functions from the same helper library.

One function in this library splits the string from Windows into an "argv" array. This function will handle quotes in the string from Windows, to support filenames with spaces, but any quotes are dropped before the name is placed in the "argv" array (to simplify further processing). Once the "argv" array is constructed, names beginning with "/" or "-" are considered options (names beginning with "@" may get other treatment, etc.)

Other solutions are obviously possible, but "-filename" seems like a silly non-issue to begin with...