Shell - argv parameter with SPACE

[Richard Gaskin]

JB wrote:
> I really did not use the shell command before I started posting
> the c and java code.
>
> I was starting to learn Python and would love to know hoe to
> use the shell to integrate it into Livecode stacks.
>
> In fact I would love any shell examples!

Here's a quickie off the top of my head (read "Don't sue me if it needs 
tweaking to work" <g>) for using rsync to back up a local folder to a 
folder on a remote server.

on mouseUp
    put fld "SourceDir" into tSrc
    put fld "DestDir" into tDest
    put fld "User" into tUser
    put fld "Server" into tServer
    put fld "PortNumber" into tPort
    if tPort is not empty then put "-p " before tPort
    --
    put "rsync -az "& tPort &&quote& tSrc &quote \
          &&quote& tUser &"@" & tServer & ":" & \
          tDest &quote into tCmd
    put shell(tCmd)
end mouseUp


Note: LC's shell function isn't interactive of course, so you'll want to 
set up a shared SSH key on the server first for passwordless login.

If you haven't done it before you'll be glad you did, and even more glad 
when you've tested that it works well so you can turn off password login 
altogether (ah, such slender auth.logs after that <g>).

This is a good guide on setting up shared SSH keys:
<https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-ssh-keys--2>

If you need to handle passwords or other interactions in shell, I don't 
know of a platform-indendent way to do that.  But in Linux (and maybe 
Mac if you install via Homebrew) you can use Expect.

Here are some examples of using Expect with bash:
<http://www.admin-magazine.com/Articles/Automating-with-Expect-Scripts>

I had started down the road of making a server management toolkit in LC 
a while back, but time's hard to come by so I'll likely be using Ansible 
for that soon.  If I can turn up any of my LC experiments mixing bash 
and Expect in shell calls I'll post 'em.

Like most uses of shell, it's just like using the command line but with 
a lot of confusing concatenation. :)

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com