Re: Question about setting argv[0] when manually using dynamic linker

[u-uy74@aetey.se]

On Tue, May 16, 2017 at 08:38:56PM -0400, John Regan wrote:
> Hi there - I was wondering if it's possible to somehow set argv[0] when
> calling the dynamic linker to load a program.
 ...
> I'd like to retain whatever was actually typed on the command line (in this
> case, set argv[0] to "app"), since many apps look at argv[0] to change
> behavior, ie - gzip vs gunzip.
> 
> I tried seeing if there was some switch I could pass to the linker, etc -
> as far as I can tell, there's no easy way to do this.

Set argv[0] to whatever you need when you exec*() the dynamic loader,
which is straightforward with a binary wrapper (not with a shell).

A binary wrapper also adds less overhead then going through a shell.

There is imho hardly any incentive to put such functionalty into the
loader. I say this even though we are dependent here on such tricks,
to work around programs which insist on guessing things when not asked to.

Regards,
Rune