problem with new multiple startupitems

[Joshua Root]

On 2018-6-4 00:31 , macports at parvis.nl wrote:
> 
>> On 2018-06-03, at 16:05, Joshua Root <jmr at macports.org> wrote:
>>
>> On 2018-6-3 23:53 , macports at parvis.nl wrote:
>>> startipitems \
>>>  name testit \
>>>  executable sudo -u paul /usr/local/bin/testit
>>
>> Should be:
>>
>> startupitems \
>>   name testit \
>>   executable "sudo -u paul /usr/local/bin/testit"
>>
>> List elements are separated by whitespace, so if an element should
>> contain whitespace, it needs to be quoted.
>>
>> - Josh
> 
> I understand. 
> 
> I took the version without quotes from existing ports like pserv, that uses the old startupitem. Is this something like string versus list?

It's something of a Tcl motto that "everything is a string". It's a
difference of interpretation: when you set startupitem.executable,
you're only setting one value, so multiple arguments are taken to be
parts of a single string. When you set the startupitems option, the
arguments are interpreted as alternating keys and values.

- Josh