wasn't that the whole reason behind adding the suggestion to the syntax error message?
ps: Missing argument to -o (see "ps --help") i think the only real problem is the old bug where commands like top don't show the -o/-O help from ps. (a quick workaround would be to mention the "see also" in the top help.) On Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 10:43 AM, Rob Landley <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 02/20/2018 12:15 PM, Rob Landley wrote: >> A lot of commands take a list of possible inputs to one of their options, and >> there should be a way to query "what are the inputs". The way qemu does it >> is to >> let you supply ? as the input (ala "qemu-system-i386 -M ?") >> >> The problem is ? is a shell wildcard so you have to quote it. Otherwise it >> works >> _almost_ all the time, and then barfs if you have a single character >> filename in >> your current directory because the shell swapped it out before running your >> command. >> >> Is there an obvious better api for this? >> >> Advantages of the qemu approach are A) a certain number of people out there >> are >> already familiar with this, B) if you see "ps -o ?" even once it's pretty >> easy >> to guess/remember what it does. Much more so than say "ps -o -". >> Disadvantage is >> shell wildcard... >> >> Hmmm... > > Ah, qemu seems to have noticed the wildcard problem, and changed their > recommendation: > > $ qemu-system-i386 -M x > qemu-system-i386: -M x: unsupported machine type > Use -machine help to list supported machines > > Ok, I suppose the magic name "help" is reasonable...? > > (I could also output the list for any unknown type, but there should be an > error > message at the top, and then it's not "for i in $(ps -o helo)"; do az $i; > done" > scriptable.) > > (One thing I've wondered about is where to _document_ this, and the error > message telling you how to get help is the obvious place...) > > Rob > _______________________________________________ > Toybox mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.landley.net/listinfo.cgi/toybox-landley.net _______________________________________________ Toybox mailing list [email protected] http://lists.landley.net/listinfo.cgi/toybox-landley.net
