I understand that it is convenient for running small snippets like that, but I don't really think it's worth the risk. And putting it into a config file is different, IMO. You don't get tempted to do some bad string interpolation there, because you can't, unless the config file format has support for that, but then I criticize that. If you need to pass things to such a snipped do it via environment variables or standard IO, not string interpolation.
If you say you don't make such mistakes: Yeah, but people do. People that write the code that runs on your system.
But if you want a command-line option for hook, what are the alternatives?
Force user to always create a wrapper script? that's just extra annoyance and if user is bad at quoting, they'll have the same problems with a script
Disable hooks at all? that's bad functionality regression
Ask for multiple arguments? this makes command-line parsing much more awkward.. I have not seen any good solutions for that.
(The only exception is writing a command wrapper that takes exactly 1 user command, like "timeout" or "xargs".. but those already using argument vector instead of parsing)
If you want to run a shell script, run a shell script. I.e. a text file with the executable bit set and a shebang. If you want to generate a shell script on the fly to then run it, take a step back and think about what you're doing.
parse commands from config file? command-line arguments for hooks?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44239036
I understand that it is convenient for running small snippets like that, but I don't really think it's worth the risk. And putting it into a config file is different, IMO. You don't get tempted to do some bad string interpolation there, because you can't, unless the config file format has support for that, but then I criticize that. If you need to pass things to such a snipped do it via environment variables or standard IO, not string interpolation.
If you say you don't make such mistakes: Yeah, but people do. People that write the code that runs on your system.
But if you want a command-line option for hook, what are the alternatives?
Force user to always create a wrapper script? that's just extra annoyance and if user is bad at quoting, they'll have the same problems with a script
Disable hooks at all? that's bad functionality regression
Ask for multiple arguments? this makes command-line parsing much more awkward.. I have not seen any good solutions for that.
(The only exception is writing a command wrapper that takes exactly 1 user command, like "timeout" or "xargs".. but those already using argument vector instead of parsing)
6 replies →
Because I don't want to implement a shell???
If you want to run a shell script, run a shell script. I.e. a text file with the executable bit set and a shebang. If you want to generate a shell script on the fly to then run it, take a step back and think about what you're doing.
Or I can just use system() because it's there and not going anywhere