On Sun, Oct 4, 2009 at 12:46 PM, Richard Miller <[email protected]> wrote: >> `--' ends options, forces consistent multi-file mode, allows empty lists > > Hey, yeah, great idea. And why not use '---' to force switching to > Linux compatible mode, and '----' to switch to BSD syntax, and '-----' > for System V syntax (5 hyphens, System 5, easy to remember). Oh, and we > might need a way to switch back to Plan 9 syntax. That better be '' > (0 hyphens). > > Example: > > cat ---- -s ----- -s '' -v > > prints the contents of file named '-v', squeezing multiple empty lines > (BSD -s) and silencing error message (System V -s).
I'm sure the people in charge of writing the next version of the PoSix standard will be very happy to adopt your proposal! That is, if they have not independently 'discovered' this fantastic solution to this horrible 'problem' already on their own. Of course, they could also move with the times, and adopt an XML format for command arguments which would be much more extensible and Web 2.0 compliant. That way all commands could share the same dynamically linked parser, and one could write scripts with their favorite XML-editor! uriel
