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> thanks for your reply, I see your point. In this case, the manpage seems > to bee irritating: (Qutoing from the manpage) > SYNOPSIS The synopsis is the part that shows how it works. > test EXPRESSION > test Neither of those show any options. So 'test' does not handle any options. > [ EXPRESSION ] > [ ] > [ OPTION The last shows the OPTION listing. So (as Eric noted in his follow-up) only the '[' command can take options. But it is also a shell builtin. So you must avoid the shell's version and call out the external one explicitly. /usr/bin/[ --version /usr/bin/[ --help Since both 'test' and '[' are shell builtins it is unusual to ever actually use the external ones. Most of the time the shell builtin versions will be used. That is the desirable case since it is so much faster than launching the external command. The external ones are provided so that a program (such as a C program) can exec(2) them. If they were only shell builtins then an exec(2) of them would fail. And originally they were external standalone programs so removing them would have been a regression, some decades ago. Bob Florian Lehmann wrote: > Hi Bob, > > thanks for your reply, I see your point. In this case, the manpage seems > to bee irritating: (Qutoing from the manpage) > > TEST(1) User Commands > TEST(1) > > NAME > test - check file types and compare values > > SYNOPSIS > test EXPRESSION > test > > [ EXPRESSION ] > [ ] > [ OPTION > > DESCRIPTION > Exit with the status determined by EXPRESSION. > > --help display this help and exit > > --version > output version information and exit > > In which case is test supposed to display the help when called with the > option --help? > > Best regards, > Florian Lehmann
