Why argument_flags trims the first argument's "--" ?

[freed00m]

Hi,

Just want to ask what is the reason for the trimming. Usin yay btw.

What I want to achieve is to run

pacui u --flag="--noconfirm"

It fails because

$ pacui u --flag="--noconfirm" 
invalid option 'noconfirm -Syu'

Why the trim?

on line 2791

            argument_flag="${2:-}"                                                  # please note that only '$1' has been trimmed, dash(es) removed, and switched to lowercase. but nothing is done yet to '$2'.         # we have to use "${2:-}" instead of "$2", because of strict bash mode!

I am so confused.

[excalibur1234]

the trim is there, because i first created the ability of pacui to have arguments and afterwards the "--flag" option.

as you probably know, the syntax of calling the update option in pacaui can be "pacui u", "pacui -u", or "pacui --u" (or all those options with a capital U). i wanted this functionality, because "pacui u" is the shortest argument to type (i.e. i prefer this way) but "pacui --help" is almost a standard for all shell scripts and should therefore be supported. my solution was to remove all leading "-" symbols from every argument (see line 2697). this way, both syntax styles can be used.

the while-loop (line 2684) goes through every given argument, removes leading "-" symbols (and some other stuff) and tries to match the argument to a pacui option. if your argument is "pacui u flag=xxxx", the while-loop is executed once for the first argument "u" and a second time for the argument "flag=xxxx". the second time, line 2786 is executed and the variable "argument_flag" now should contain "xxxx".

i have just checked this by adding the following code to line 110: echo "argument_flag=""$argument_flag""|" the result is as follows:

~ > ./dev/pacui/pacui u --flag="--testt"
argument_flag=--testt |

as you can see "--test " (including a space in the end" was correctly assigned to "argument_flag" variable.
i have just run " ./dev/pacui/pacui u --flag="--testt" " using yay, pikaur, and pacman (i.e. no AUR helper): 
* yay yields the error message you have noticed, 
* pikaur seems to ignore the unknown "testt" argument and 
* pacman complains about an unknown "testt" argument: `pacman: unrecognized option '--testt -Syu'`

the problem must be in line 115 when calling "`yay --testt -Syu`". but since the "argument_flag" variable contains the full "--testt " string (and this includes leading dashes), i conclude that the mistake is not on pacui's side because it correctly hands over the "argument_flag" variable to yay, pikaur, and pacman.

have you done similar tests?
what are your results?

[excalibur1234]

p.s.: i seems that i cannot edit or preview comments on github anymore. therefore, the lower half of my previous comment is all marked as code. shame on github.

[freed00m]

@excalibur1234 - maybe moving to the gitlab instance? :) Github is becoming more terrible each day.

[freed00m]

Yes when I add the echo line on 110 I see the same thing but the flag is stilled trimed.

pacui u --flag="--noconfirm"                                                                                                              
argument_flag=--noconfirm |
invalid option 'noconfirm -Syu'
doas (frdm@Warspite) password: 

tadadadada

the while-loop (line 2684) goes through every given argument, removes leading "-" symbols (and some other stuff) and tries to match the argument to a pacui option. if your argument is "pacui u flag=xxxx", the while-loop is executed once for the first argument "u" and a second time for the argument "flag=xxxx". the second time, line 2786 is executed and the variable "argument_flag" now should contain "xxxx".

Yes I observed that but I cannot pass something to the yay with dashes then? I want to the argument should be untouched.

I see the argument_flag variable is set up correctly but then the loop does something to it without the possibility to stop it from happening.

The whole idea discussed prior implementing the argument_flag was to add options to the AUR helper and not extra actions.

[excalibur1234]

your first sentence is (probably) not true:

as you can see in the second line of your output, the "argument_flag" variable contains the string "--noconfirm " (i.e. the dashes are still there!). then, in line 115, yay gets called with the "argument_flag" variable: yay "$argument_flag"-Syu this means that the following line SHOULD get called (but for some reason is not): yay --noconfirm -Syu

i think i found a solution: can you test to replace line 115 if ( yay "$argument_flag"-Syu ) with this: if ( yay "$argument_flag" -Syu )

does this work for you?

[excalibur1234]

fixed in bf24fcb2e0082e70d1aeefa9af3c7ded70e6d2d8