> The option -/ is already used by star: > > -/ don't strip leading '/'s from file > names > > I believe that special characters like '/' should be > use for similar tasks > in order to make it easier to memorize options. > > I propose to use either a different character or to > introduce long options, > e.g. by switching from getopt() to getargs().
What different character? Of the ASCII punctuation, I think only @%-_+=:,./ would not need quoting in some shell or another. "-+" or "-=" would be confusing (some progs have + and - options or -name=val options), "--" would be impossible (option terminator in case 1st file name starts with a dash), "-@" is already used for the file-like named extended attributes, "-:" would not work with getopt(), and "-_", "-,", or "-." are all very ugly or at least could be hard to see under some circumstances. I suppose -= is the least bad of the lot, but that's not saying much. Is there any firm guidance on the use of long options (or the addition of them to commands with short options, esp. in the case where there might be more long options than short options)? Because whether it is this or something else, ls is running low on options, and if one wants consistent similar options, that's just about impossible past a certain point. The problem is, for the consistent option consideration, a whole bunch of commands would have to be modified to add long option support. This message posted from opensolaris.org
