Contents of argv[0]

[Bob McGowen Wyse Technology Training]

In article <1681 at crdgw1.crd.ge.com> davidsen at crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen) writes:
>In article <9002 at attctc.Dallas.TX.US> jls at attctc.Dallas.TX.US (Jerome Schneider) writes:
>
>| Are there any (proposed) standards for argv[0] syntax?  If not, should a
>| _portable_ application always rindex() argv[0] for a path delimiter before
>| optionally (under DOS and OS half) converting the name to_lower()?
>
>  If the program is portable you would have no way to know what the
>path delimiter is... since the set includes "/" for UNIX, "\" for
>MS-DOS, ":[]" for VMS, ":<>" for TOPS, etc. Since some systems allow
---some deleted---

How about proposing a new function to be called basename(), obviously
coded for the environment which the compiler was running under?  It
would return a pointer to a string which would be the name of the
program.

For example, in shell programming where root (with no current dir in
the PATH) must run the script as {absolute|relative path}name, $0 will
include the path used to invoke the script.  I have started using the
basename command to guarantee that the name I use in usage/error
messages is just the name of the script.

Bob McGowan  (standard disclaimer, these are my own ...)
Customer Education, Wyse Technology, San Jose, CA
..!uunet!wyse!bob
bob at wyse.com