launchd.plist key EnableGlobbing gone without replacement, documentation out of date

Originator:adamnhjl
Number:rdar://18547306 Date Originated:2014-10-04
Status:Duplicate of 10522452 Resolved:
Product:OS X Product Version:10.10/14A379a
Classification:Other bug Reproducible:Always
 
Summary:
The launchd.plist key EnableGlobbing is no longer supported, but the launchd.plist man page does not reflect it, additionally there is LAUNCH_JOBKEY_ENABLEGLOBBING defined in the XPC API. The main nuisance is that I cannot refer to user’s home directory in ProgramArguments, e.g. launch a tool located there. Hardcoding the home directory path is an inferior solution as the path can change any time.

One reasonable solution would be to provide automatic tilde expansion in ProgramArguments (possibly triggered by EnableTildeExpansion key).

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Create a valid launchd.plist file/LaunchAgent that contains EnableGlobbing = YES and ProgramArguments containing one string "~/some/path/to/a/tool/in/users/home/directory"
2. load it (e.g. using the command launchctl load file-from-step-1.plist)
3. observe if tool is launched and console output

Expected Results:
As par the launchd.plist man page the tool should launch.

Actual Results:
Tool does not launch. Console output:

The EnableGlobbing key is no longer respected. Please remove it.
Service could not initialize  (...): 0x2

where 0x2 is presumably the ENOENT errno (File or directory does not exist).

Comments


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