Re: [boost] Re: [program_options] multi-line description patch

From: Vladimir Prus (ghost_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-12-14 06:22:11

On Monday 13 December 2004 14:24, Leo Goodstadt wrote:
> On Wed, 2004-12-08 at 12:13 +0300, Vladimir Prus wrote:
> > Bertolt Mildner wrote:
> > >> Yes, formatting is smashed anyway, so ignoring the tabs on the seconds
> > >
> > > line
> > >
> > >> is a viable option.
> > >
> > > OK, so they are ignored, *but* i still think that asserting on it is
> > > vital because in the other case (= fixed length set by user or even
> > > worth, line length defaults to m_default_line_length cause user did
> > > *not* set a line length at all) it would mean that the formatting
> > > simply silently fails. Not very nice form a users point of view!
>
> I am joining this discussion really late but I have also written (an in-
> house) prettifier which reformats the options descriptions.
> Some thoughts:

Hi Leo,

it's surprising that two people independently did the same! 
Since the patch from Bertolt is already submitted and reviewed once, I think 
it will eventually be committed...

> One of things I did was to align the description lines of different sets
> of options. (I usually have at least two sets of options, one of which
> is truly optional, and one of which is mandatory. I.e. an exception is
> throw if any are missing).

But I'm interested in aligning across sets of options, too. I suspect the code 
to compute alignment is pretty independent from formatting itself and can 
become a separate patch? 

> I considered doing everything by tabs etc., but decided that it would be
> much better to embed a "line-wrap control code" in my description text.
> I just used "\0x01" which is a bit of a kludge but no worse that "the
> last tab".

Actually, it's "first tab", now, IIRC. I've no opinion which one is better.

- Volodya