tl;dr with the attached you can follow links from: src/ls --help
Most users don't use the info reader,
but we do have a comprehensive 100K word manual
that is accessible in any web browser.
There is always the balance of not overwhelming users with too much info
in --help / man pages, but ideally --help should also be
an index to the more complete info online.
The <command>-<option> combo is a perfect index into this full manual,
and I've recently prepared the full online manual to support
indexing to the appropriate part by appending a #<command>-<option>
to any of the manual URLs.
To complete the connection, I've attached here an adjustment,
for now just to ls for illustration / discussion.
With this you should be able to click or ctrl-click
on each of the --options to get further detail online.
I.e. you can following links from: src/ls --help
Notes:
We can configure this to access a local manual through file://... urls
I've tested this and it works fine.
Having each --option hyperlinked also gives a visual distinction
between the --option text and description, which makes --help
quite a bit easier to read IMHO.
We only output --option links if stdout is a tty currently,
though it would be nice to support piping to e.g., less -R.
Perhaps keying on stdin would be better then, or maybe support --help[=WHEN],
though options on --help do seem like overkill.
hyperlinks are very well supported in terminals now,
and if not, the fallback of just showing the link text is fine.
This will result in each option being translated separately.
That seems better anyway, and is something we've already been
gradually adjusting to over the last few years.
Many of the existing translations will not need to change.
I've not looked into propagating these URLs to man pages.
It would be useful if man pages did support it, but after a very
quick search it seems that they might not, which is fine but a pity.
This is just a quick patch for discussion, and not yet ready for merging.
cheers,
Padraig
From 8cfc82b2a5582c868aaa8c1f0f1dcecdb2220571 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: =?UTF-8?q?P=C3=A1draig=20Brady?= <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2025 13:40:32 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] all: add styling and links to --help output
* src/ls.c (oputs): A new function that wraps puts(),
but also highlights the --option-text portion, and
adds links to the appropriate part of the online manual.
(usage): Call oputs() rather than puts().
---
src/ls.c | 242 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-----------------
1 file changed, 166 insertions(+), 76 deletions(-)
diff --git a/src/ls.c b/src/ls.c
index 6b5f2b053..87cee0877 100644
--- a/src/ls.c
+++ b/src/ls.c
@@ -5334,6 +5334,54 @@ calculate_columns (bool by_columns)
return cols;
}
+static void
+oputs (char const *option)
+{
+ /* XXX: How to support piping to less -R etc.? */
+ if (! stdout_isatty ())
+ {
+ fputs (option, stdout);
+ return;
+ }
+
+ /* Note this messes up help2man at least. */
+ char const *option_text = strchr (option, '-');
+ assert (option_text);
+ size_t anchor_len = strcspn (option_text, ",=[ \n");
+
+ /* Set desc_text to spacing after the full option text */
+ char const *desc_text = option_text + anchor_len;
+ while (*desc_text && (! c_isspace (*desc_text) || *(desc_text + 1) == '-'))
+ desc_text++;
+
+ /* write spaces before option text. */
+ fwrite (option, 1, option_text - option, stdout);
+
+ /* write option text. */
+ char const *url_program = streq (PROGRAM_NAME, "[") ? "test" : PROGRAM_NAME;
+ /* Note this can link to a local manual with file://... */
+ /* Note single node manual doesn't work for ls, cksum, md5sum, sha*sum,
+ but use single node for --help or --version.. */
+ if (STREQ_LEN (option_text, "--help", 6)
+ || STREQ_LEN (option_text, "--version", 9))
+ {
+ printf ("\033]8;;%s%s#%s%.*s", PACKAGE_URL,
+ url_program, url_program, (int) anchor_len, option_text);
+ }
+ else
+ {
+ printf ("\033]8;;%smanual/coreutils.html#%s%.*s", PACKAGE_URL,
+ url_program, (int) anchor_len, option_text);
+ }
+ fputs ("\a", stdout);
+ fputs ("\033[1m", stdout); /* Also embolden option text. */
+ fwrite (option_text, 1, desc_text - option_text, stdout);
+ fputs ("\033[0m", stdout);
+ fputs ("\033]8;;\a", stdout);
+
+ fputs (desc_text, stdout);
+}
+
void
usage (int status)
{
@@ -5349,151 +5397,181 @@ Sort entries alphabetically if none of -cftuvSUX nor --sort is specified.\n\
emit_mandatory_arg_note ();
- fputs (_("\
+ oputs (_("\
-a, --all do not ignore entries starting with .\n\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-A, --almost-all do not list implied . and ..\n\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
--author with -l, print the author of each file\n\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-b, --escape print C-style escapes for nongraphic characters\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
--block-size=SIZE with -l, scale sizes by SIZE when printing them;\n\
e.g., '--block-size=M'; see SIZE format below\n\
\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-B, --ignore-backups do not list implied entries ending with ~\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-c with -lt: sort by, and show, ctime (time of last\n\
change of file status information);\n\
with -l: show ctime and sort by name;\n\
otherwise: sort by ctime, newest first\n\
\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-C list entries by columns\n\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
--color[=WHEN] color the output WHEN; more info below\n\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-d, --directory list directories themselves, not their contents\n\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-D, --dired generate output designed for Emacs' dired mode\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-f same as -a -U\n\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-F, --classify[=WHEN] append indicator (one of */=>@|) to entries WHEN\n\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
--file-type likewise, except do not append '*'\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
--format=WORD across,horizontal (-x), commas (-m), long (-l),\n\
single-column (-1), verbose (-l), vertical (-C)\n\
\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
--full-time like -l --time-style=full-iso\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-g like -l, but do not list owner\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
--group-directories-first\n\
group directories before files\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-G, --no-group in a long listing, don't print group names\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-h, --human-readable with -l and -s, print sizes like 1K 234M 2G etc.\n\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
--si likewise, but use powers of 1000 not 1024\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-H, --dereference-command-line\n\
follow symbolic links listed on the command line\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
--dereference-command-line-symlink-to-dir\n\
follow each command line symbolic link\n\
that points to a directory\n\
\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
--hide=PATTERN do not list implied entries matching shell PATTERN\
\n\
(overridden by -a or -A)\n\
\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
--hyperlink[=WHEN] hyperlink file names WHEN\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
--indicator-style=WORD\n\
append indicator with style WORD to entry names:\n\
none (default), slash (-p),\n\
file-type (--file-type), classify (-F)\n\
\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-i, --inode print the index number of each file\n\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-I, --ignore=PATTERN do not list implied entries matching shell PATTERN\
\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-k, --kibibytes default to 1024-byte blocks for file system usage;\
\n\
used only with -s and per directory totals\n\
\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-l use a long listing format\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-L, --dereference when showing file information for a symbolic\n\
link, show information for the file the link\n\
references rather than for the link itself\n\
\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-m fill width with a comma separated list of entries\
\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-n, --numeric-uid-gid like -l, but list numeric user and group IDs\n\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-N, --literal print entry names without quoting\n\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-o like -l, but do not list group information\n\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-p, --indicator-style=slash\n\
append / indicator to directories\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-q, --hide-control-chars print ? instead of nongraphic characters\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
--show-control-chars show nongraphic characters as-is (the default,\n\
unless program is 'ls' and output is a terminal)\
\n\
\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-Q, --quote-name enclose entry names in double quotes\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
--quoting-style=WORD use quoting style WORD for entry names:\n\
literal, locale, shell, shell-always,\n\
shell-escape, shell-escape-always, c, escape\n\
(overrides QUOTING_STYLE environment variable)\n\
\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-r, --reverse reverse order while sorting\n\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-R, --recursive list subdirectories recursively\n\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-s, --size print the allocated size of each file, in blocks\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-S sort by file size, largest first\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
--sort=WORD change default 'name' sort to WORD:\n\
none (-U), size (-S), time (-t),\n\
version (-v), extension (-X), name, width\n\
\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
--time=WORD select which timestamp used to display or sort;\n\
access time (-u): atime, access, use;\n\
metadata change time (-c): ctime, status;\n\
@@ -5502,37 +5580,49 @@ Sort entries alphabetically if none of -cftuvSUX nor --sort is specified.\n\
with -l, WORD determines which time to show;\n\
with --sort=time, sort by WORD (newest first)\n\
\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
--time-style=TIME_STYLE\n\
time/date format with -l; see TIME_STYLE below\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-t sort by time, newest first; see --time\n\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-T, --tabsize=COLS assume tab stops at each COLS instead of 8\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-u with -lt: sort by, and show, access time;\n\
with -l: show access time and sort by name;\n\
otherwise: sort by access time, newest first\n\
\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-U do not sort directory entries\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-v natural sort of (version) numbers within text\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (_("\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-w, --width=COLS set output width to COLS. 0 means no limit\n\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-x list entries by lines instead of by columns\n\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-X sort alphabetically by entry extension\n\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-Z, --context print any security context of each file\n\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
--zero end each output line with NUL, not newline\n\
+"));
+ oputs (_("\
-1 list one file per line\n\
-"), stdout);
- fputs (HELP_OPTION_DESCRIPTION, stdout);
- fputs (VERSION_OPTION_DESCRIPTION, stdout);
+"));
+ oputs (HELP_OPTION_DESCRIPTION);
+ oputs (VERSION_OPTION_DESCRIPTION);
emit_size_note ();
fputs (_("\
\n\
--
2.52.0
