[Openmcl-devel] Command line argument behavior

[Waldek Hebisch]

> 
> The problem as I see it is as follows: When only one argument (which =
> does not begin with a '-') is provided to a binary which consists of =
> (kernel + heap-image), the current kernel code automatically tries to =
> load that argument as the image even though it should clearly use the =
> image attached to the binary itself. As a result, one has to always use =
> the '--' argument to end processing of the kernel arguments. This =
> behavior is not expected for unix command line tools and shouldn't be =
> expected here either IMHO.
>

Yes, this is a serious problem.
 
> The attached patch provides a sub-optimal solution which basically =
> detects the case when the heap image is already included in the binary =
> and so does not try to load the image from that first argument. The =
> problem with this is that since '--' is not required, other kernel level =
> command line flags, such as -I, -R, -S, etc, that are not passed on to =
> the application may cause some confusion.=20
> 
> Another solution is to completely disable those kernel level flags if =
> the heap image is attached to the kernel, but the loss of control over =
> those parameters is also undesirable.
> 
> Any other suggestions?
>

IIRC the kernel flags have short and long forms.  Short forms are
very likely to cause conflicts, but long forms are not so bad.
So as cheap compromise one may disable only short form.

Better solution would be to let application choose if/which kernel
flags are respected and allow to rename them.  This would require
ability to embed list of strings into image and recover it when
checking for presence of the image.

-- 
                              Waldek Hebisch
hebisch at math.uni.wroc.pl