Ah ha!
You see the batch job user scours the man page, and only finds:
-1, --one-line
Give only one line of output (the forward conversion); do not
print the reverse conversion. If a reciprocal conversion is
performed, then units will still print the “reciprocal conver‐
sion” line.
-t, --terse
Print only a single conversion factor. This option can be used
when calling units from another program so that the output is
easy to parse. This option has the combined effect of these op‐
tions: ‘--strict’ ‘--quiet’ ‘--one-line’ ‘--compact’. When
combined with ‘--version’ it produces a display showing only the
program name and version number.
--compact
Give compact output featuring only the conversion factor; the
multiplication and division signs are not shown, and there is no
leading whitespace. If you convert to a unit list, then the
output is a semicolon separated list of factors. This turns off
the ‘--verbose’ option.
But in fact, --terse should say:
-t, --terse
Print only a single conversion factor. This option can be used
when calling units from another program so that the output is
easy to parse. This option has the combined effect of these op‐
tions: ‘--strict’ ‘--quiet’ ‘--one-line’ ‘--compact’. When
combined with ‘--version’ it produces a display showing only the
program name and version number. And here we even strip
the units off:
$ units --terse mile meters
1609.344
I am saying that people who are looking to strip things down... their
eyes will focus on that part of the man page, so be sure to repeat that
feature there.
So indeed, there is no need for things like,
$ dlocate --help
-f, --filename-only Strip 'package: ' prefix from search output
-p, --package-only Output package names only when searching
because units already has what it needs. It just needs to mention it on
the right spot on the man page again. Thanks.
