Op 22-03-09 16:21, Jari Aalto schreef:
Erwin Waterlander <[email protected]> writes:
It's a bit difficult to follow top-posted emails, when the
conversation does not flow naturally.
From user perspective, unifying the command line options would be a good
thing, thus I propose moving forward with -v, --verbose and -V,
--version as they are also GNU standards.
I have not searched much, but what I have seen so far is that Gnu
standardises only on the long options.
See
http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Command_002dLine-Interfaces.html
Can you point me to a document about standardised short options?
We can observe the use of equivalent short options in GNU programs (as
shows in previous messages). The utilities that are used daily, those
of:
cp -v
mv -v
ssh -v -v
...
determine what is is the interpreted meaning of lowercase "-v". many use
that daily to mean "verbose" It should not be a big switch for other
programs to follow similar convention. A more consistent interface would
be welcomed in all aspects.
Those other programs that you referred to, that use -v differently,
would be welcomed to change accordingly.
Jari
Hi,
Eric S. Raymond writes in his "The Art of Unix Programming" a list of
single letter options which are not uncommon to experienced Unix users
(http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch10s05.html). In this list -v is for
verbose and -V for version number as you propose. This document is not a
specification, but the experience of Eric. My experience is different.
Option -v for verbose etc is only standard on GNU applications is my 14
year experience. When you are not on Linux, but on a commercial Unix
version, everything is different. POSIX does not prescribe any specific
option (see
http://www.iam.ubc.ca/guides/javatut99/essential/attributes/_posix.html).
GNU only standardises the long options as I already mentioned. X toolkit
does it also different.
Wcd is used also by many people who work on Unix (not Linux), who are
not used to GNU command line options. In the beginning I used wcd many
years on HP-UX and Solaris.
For a long time I have been thinking to use the getopt() function, but
two issues stopped me from doing it.
* The function is often not included if you use an other compiler than
gcc. So I had to include getopt() in my source. I found it too big.
* I use besides the hyphen also the plus switch.
My conclusions are:
* There exists no standard that prescribes -v for verbose or -V for version
* There is no tradition to use -v for verbose. It may look like a
tradition for people who have only used Linux and GNU applications.
* GNU only standardised some long options.
* Many GNU programs use -v for verbose and -V for version.
* Many programs (also with GNU license) use -v for version.
For me this is a non-issue. I will switch options -v and -V.
Using long options for Wcd would be joke, because wcd is all about
reducing typing.
best regards,
Erwin Waterlander
