From owner-cvs-all Thu Jun 24 2: 4:11 1999 Delivered-To: cvs-all@freebsd.org Received: from storm.FreeBSD.org.uk (storm.freebsd.org.uk [194.242.128.198]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 70E761504E; Thu, 24 Jun 1999 02:03:57 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from brian@keep.lan.Awfulhak.org) Received: from keep.lan.Awfulhak.org (keep.lan.Awfulhak.org [172.16.0.8]) by storm.FreeBSD.org.uk (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA65653; Thu, 24 Jun 1999 10:03:50 +0100 (BST) (envelope-from brian@keep.lan.Awfulhak.org) Received: from keep.lan.Awfulhak.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by keep.lan.Awfulhak.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA01569; Thu, 24 Jun 1999 10:02:57 +0100 (BST) (envelope-from brian@keep.lan.Awfulhak.org) Message-Id: <199906240902.KAA01569@keep.lan.Awfulhak.org> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0.2 2/24/98 To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" 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 ..) In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 24 Jun 1999 01:34:42 PDT." <51970.930213282@zippy.cdrom.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 10:02:57 +0100 From: Brian Somers Sender: owner-cvs-all@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk > > 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 Don't _EVER_ lose your sense of humour ! To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe cvs-all" in the body of the message