Response files

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Jason House" <jason.james.house at gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:gq2dv9$2vn3$1 at digitalmars.com...
> Walter Bright Wrote:
>
>> Frank Benoit wrote:
>> > DMD 1.041 on windows does support response files, that is a file
>> > containing arguments.
>> > On Linux dmd does not understand that.
>>
>> The windows response files date back to the problem DOS/Windows had with
>> only a very short command line length was allowed. So the arguments were
>> put into a file instead.
>>
>> It's probably a good idea to do it for Linux, too.
>
> Ick. Why? Command files are hacks for Window's shortcomings. Why spread 
> such hacks across all platforms? The linux command line is already well 
> adapted to handle this kind of thing.

Sometimes command lines get too long to keep typing (obviously). You *could* 
solve that with a shell/batch script, but then that would be specific to a 
particular shell/OS. As long as the app you're using is reasonably 
cross-platform, then a response file is completely shell/OS-agnostic. 
Response files may have originated as a workaround, but that doesn't mean 
they didn't turn out to have additional benefits.