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3.17.1 The Top of a Script File

The --run option makes it possible to use mailfromd scripts as standalone programs. The traditional way to do so was to set the executable bit on the script file and to begin the script with the interpreter selector, i.e. the characters ‘#!’ followed by the name of the mailfromd executable, e.g.:

#! /usr/sbin/mailfromd --run

This would cause the shell to invoke mailfromd with the command line constructed from the --run option, the name of the invoked script file itself, and any actual arguments from the invocation. Once invoked, mailfromd would treat the initial ‘#!’ line as a usual single-line comment (see Comments).

However, the interpretation of the ‘#!’ by shells has various deficiencies, which depend on the actual shell being used. For example, some shells pass any characters following the whitespace after the interpreter name as a single argument, some others silently truncate the command line after some number of characters, etc. This often make it impossible to pass additional arguments to mailfromd. For example, a script which begins with the following line would most probably fail to be executed properly:

#! /usr/sbin/mailfromd --echo --run

To compensate for these deficiencies and to allow for more complex invocation sequences, mailfromd handles initial ‘#’ in a special way. If the first line of a source file begins with ‘#!/’ or ‘#! /’ (with a single space between ‘!’ and ‘/’), it is treated as a start of a multi-line comment, which is closed by the two characters ‘!#’ on a line by themselves.

Thus, the correct way to begin a mailfromd script is:

#! /usr/sbin/mailfromd --run
!#

Using this feature, you can start the mailfromd with arbitrary shell code, provided it ends with an exec statement invoking the interpreter itself. For example:

#!/bin/sh
exec /usr/sbin/mailfromd --echo --run $0 $@
!#

func main(...)
  returns number
do
  /* actual mfl code goes here */
done

Note the use of ‘$0’ and ‘$@’ to pass the actual script file name and command line arguments to mailfromd.


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