xrdb -load ~/.Xdefaults cpp: too many input files

Question

Question:

• Why doesn't this work?

Note:

# cat ~/.Xdefaults

XTerm*background: black
XTerm*foreground: white
XTerm*highlightColor: red
XTerm*highlightSelection: true

# xrdb -load ~/.Xdefaults

cpp: too many input files

Answer 1

Cpp reports this error if it receives more than two arguments on the command line.

On what OS are you running? Is there a non-standard version of cpp in your $PATH? You can try replacing cpp with a wrapper script to find out what it's really doing or use "strace" to see how it's being called.

Hold on, I think I've got it: the path to your directory contains whitespace. Watch this:

  $ mkdir '/tmp/this path contains spaces'
  $ HOME='/tmp/this path contains spaces' sh
  $ cd ~
  $ pwd
  /tmp/this path contains spaces
  $ touch testfile
  $ xrdb ~/testfile
  cpp: too many input files

Let me know if this is an accurate assessment.