Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 10:02:57 +0100 From: Brian Somers <brian@Awfulhak.org> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.cdrom.com> Cc: hm@hcs.de, bde@zeta.org.au (Bruce Evans), imp@FreeBSD.org, cvs-all@FreeBSD.org, cvs-committers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: getopt -? illegal ? (was: cvs commit: src/usr.sbin/i4b/isdnd main.c ..) Message-ID: <199906240902.KAA01569@keep.lan.Awfulhak.org> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 24 Jun 1999 01:34:42 PDT." <51970.930213282@zippy.cdrom.com>
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> > Since the very first days i learned Unix, i was - and i still am - under the
> > impression that running a program with -? produces a usage message.
> >
> > I still think that this is common sense, usage and knowledge.
>
> Interesting, the oldest Unix applications I can think of always used
> -h[elp] for this purpose. I don't think there is any real standard
> there. :)
Of course -h usually tells the command not to follow symlinks
these days :-}
Whether the command treats -? as meaning ``show usage'' or not, it
should still show a usage message. I think the argument is over
whether or not it should also say ``invalid option --?''. This (-?)
IMHO should be an undocumented feature of all programs - ie, it
shouldn't be listed as an option in the man page, but should work only
because -? is not a valid option.
> - Jordan
--
Brian <brian@Awfulhak.org> <brian@FreeBSD.org>
<http://www.Awfulhak.org>; <brian@OpenBSD.org>
Don't _EVER_ lose your sense of humour ! <brian@FreeBSD.org.uk>
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