On Mon, May 14, 2012 at 3:33 AM, Pádraig Brady <[email protected]> wrote: > On 05/13/2012 04:27 AM, Peng Yu wrote: >>> `--relative-base=BASE' >>> Only output relative names when both the `--relative-to' and processed >>> FILEs are descendants of BASE. Otherwise output the absolute file name. >>> Note this option honors the @option{-m} and @option{-e} options >>> pertaining to file existence. >> >> '--relative-to' and '--relative-base' are too long. Would you please >> add a one-letter shortcut, such as -t and -b? > > Well short options are a bit of a trade off. > > -t or -b would detract from the readability of a command > using them and thus would be useful just to save typing. > These days though there are other aids to both memory > and typing, like shell tab completion and > editor auto completion.
I original suggested adding "relpath". I don't agree to bury this under realpath. Having realpath for relpath is already awkward and inconvenient. I don't think that it is wise having even long option names to make it even more inconvenient. I think that some names in coreutils is not good. This is just one instance and should corrected. > Also a factor is the frequency of use. > ls for example is a command used very often, > so can benefit from some short options. > I see realpath being used less interactively, > and more in scripts where readability is more important. You can't tell for others how frequent they will use it. Just a like, a rare disease is rare for a common person. But for persons who have the disease it is 100%. Bottom line, as a convention, for each long name option, there should be a short name option, unless there are more than 26x2=52 options, in which case the command is too large and should be broken into multiple commands. -- Regards, Peng
