RE: [boost] Re: Command line syntaxes

From: Schoenborn, Oliver (oliver.schoenborn_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-01-23 10:20:34

> --- In boost_at_y..., Vladimir Prus <ghost_at_c...> wrote:
> > 
> > I think that in order to make progress with command line parsing
library, Iit 
> > would be usefull to discuss possible syntaxes and possible clashes
between 
> > them. I've written some initial implementation of the parsing proper
which is 
> > available at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/boost/files/Command Line 
> > Parsing/cmdline.cpp
> > 
> 
> I'm not clear on the need to distinguish between long and short 
> option names.  What I would have is a 'minimum abbreviation length' 
> setting, whereby you must have at least x unambiguous letters of the 
> option name for it to be recognised.  

Sorry if this has already been explicitly ruled out, but is there a reason
for not distinguishing between long and short arguments by using - for short
and -- for long?  This is easy to remember and might simplify the rules for
the user too.  So if you see, say, 

progName -v2rbt -er --elf --noog

you would immediately know, even just by looking, that only elf and noog are
long args, whereas 'er' is either two shorts or one short with a parameter
r, etc.

Oliver