lc shell and command line

[Mike Bonner]

Hey all, have a question re: parsing command lines.

I'm working on an lcshell script (as in a script that mimics a shell like
bash) and .. well the simple stuff is simple as you might guess.  Its easy
enough to set a prompt based on current directory, loop and read stdin for
command lines, have it execute commands internal to the script, or execute
a shell for external commands as long as they're simple.  Currently working
on re-creating the functionality of cd command. However, before I proceed
too far with this ugly hack it has become apparent that I need better
methods of parsing.

I'm hoping to include pipes, redirects, etc. Basically I am hoping to make
a fully functional interactive lcshell similar to perlsh.

Can anyone suggest reading materials, tutorials, examples of this type of
parsing that are basic enough to get me started down a better path than
the spaghetti code i'm smooshing together so far? (a mixture of switch
blocks, ifs, and 'best guesses')

Also, there was a post here about lc and the command line, and being able
to execute scripts directly. On linux and mac at least, scripts can use the
#! method to locate its executable, so lcserver works great for this.

In my case lcserver is located in /usr/lib/cgi-bin/livecode-server
so putting the following line first in an lc script will cause it to
execute.
#!/usr/lib/cgi-bin/livecode-server
<?lc
your script here
?>
The only negative is lc doesn't know to NOT print the # line. (part of the
reason i'm working towards an lcshell type script, start it up, then
execute what you want.)
Don't forget to set the file to executable of course.