Re: Command line syntaxes

From: bill_kempf (williamkempf_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-01-23 18:17:23

--- In boost_at_y..., "Schoenborn, Oliver" <oliver.schoenborn_at_n...> 
wrote:
> > Schoenborn, Oliver wrote:
> > > > 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?  
> > 
> > I find it the best syntax. In fact, this is what you get with the
> predefined 
> > "unix" style. However, people was asking for long options names 
with a
> single 
> > dash/slash. 
> > 
> > - Volodya
> 
> Yes, but just because users ask for it doesn't mean it is a good 
feature to
> have.  If Stroustrup were to have accepted everything that users 
wanted into
> the C++ language, it would be a mess.  Why not keep things simple, 
clear,
> without sacrificing true versatility? I suspect that only a very 
small
> minority of users would need the long options with one '-' so bad 
that they
> would refuse to use the boost command line library.

I don't agree.  Using two sets of switch charaters with two distinct 
sets of command line options will just confuse most users, and serves 
no purpose when "long options" require only as many characters as 
required to distinguish it from other "long options".  The use of 
multiple switch characters is actually what I find most annoying of 
Unix style command line parsing.  If a command line parser must pick 
a single way to parse (I don't agree that it should) then I'd 
strongly argue for '/' or '-' denoting the beginning of an option, 
with the option matching any subset of charactes in any of the valid 
options that reduces to a single choice, and other options/arguments 
would then be required to be seperated by white space.

I bet many people would agree with me... especially those from non-
Unix backgrounds.  I'd be surprised if the numbers that agreed 
represent a "small minority" of users (especially if you include 
actual users and not just programmers).

Bill Kempf