On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 3:22 PM, Oleg Broytman <phd@phdru.name> wrote:
That wouldn't work. Shebang line accepts one and only one parameter.
There are operating systems that allow more but they are exceptions.
I think Neal was suggesting that you rely on that property (in which case the exceptions might be the problem). If I understood correctly, /usr/bin/python would be started by the kernel, and it would be passed the -x flag. It would then inspect the #! line again, paying attention to the second (and following) arguments. Seeing the -3, it would continue executing. If it saw nothing (or saw -2?) it would exec /usr/bin/python2 (or similar).