On 12/8/20 12:49 AM, Pádraig Brady wrote:
> As it happens we're currently working on a more general solution
> to alignment of --help output, which should address this.
Yes, the idea is to output the usage texts in 3 columns: short option,
long option and description. The question is if such automatic alignment
would lead to a nicely readable text. The problem starts with:
- short options having arguments,
- several short options for the same thing: rm -r,-R
- several long options for the same thing: --quiet, --silent
etc.
Thus said, after fixing the above it would be hard to get better results
with automatic, columnar alignment without loosing too much space.
In that regard, the programs chroot, comm and join are just violating
the status quo: they do not align long-only options properly.
Therefore, I'm 60:40 to start with Arman's patches, yet fixing
the indentation of the description column in join and comm: see
attached (squashed) patch.
The only thing which is still a bit annoying is that the indentation
of the long option and the description via the HELP_OPTION_DESCRIPTION
and VERSION_OPTION_DESCRIPTION macros do not match that of the program.
We could address this by passing the number of necessary spaces as
parameters to the macros (and maybe change them into functions).
WDYT?
Have a nice day,
Berny
>From 14562f8b20258a08dfd42a03487656ed8a9a2e3a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Arman Absalan <arman...@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 2020 00:48:57 +0330
Subject: [PATCH] chroot,comm,join: fix usage options style
* src/chroot.c (usage): Fix indentation of options.
* src/comm.c: Likewise.
* src/join.c: Likewise.
---
src/chroot.c | 6 +++---
src/comm.c | 18 +++++++++---------
src/join.c | 32 ++++++++++++++++----------------
3 files changed, 28 insertions(+), 28 deletions(-)
diff --git a/src/chroot.c b/src/chroot.c
index 02081e542..f8483f693 100644
--- a/src/chroot.c
+++ b/src/chroot.c
@@ -195,13 +195,13 @@ Run COMMAND with root directory set to NEWROOT.\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
- --groups=G_LIST specify supplementary groups as g1,g2,..,gN\n\
+ --groups=G_LIST specify supplementary groups as g1,g2,..,gN\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
- --userspec=USER:GROUP specify user and group (ID or name) to use\n\
+ --userspec=USER:GROUP specify user and group (ID or name) to use\n\
"), stdout);
printf (_("\
- --skip-chdir do not change working directory to %s\n\
+ --skip-chdir do not change working directory to %s\n\
"), quoteaf ("/"));
fputs (HELP_OPTION_DESCRIPTION, stdout);
diff --git a/src/comm.c b/src/comm.c
index 2bf8094bf..5c70f7710 100644
--- a/src/comm.c
+++ b/src/comm.c
@@ -128,24 +128,24 @@ and column three contains lines common to both files.\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
\n\
- -1 suppress column 1 (lines unique to FILE1)\n\
- -2 suppress column 2 (lines unique to FILE2)\n\
- -3 suppress column 3 (lines that appear in both files)\n\
+ -1 suppress column 1 (lines unique to FILE1)\n\
+ -2 suppress column 2 (lines unique to FILE2)\n\
+ -3 suppress column 3 (lines that appear in both files)\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
\n\
- --check-order check that the input is correctly sorted, even\n\
- if all input lines are pairable\n\
- --nocheck-order do not check that the input is correctly sorted\n\
+ --check-order check that the input is correctly sorted, even\n\
+ if all input lines are pairable\n\
+ --nocheck-order do not check that the input is correctly sorted\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
- --output-delimiter=STR separate columns with STR\n\
+ --output-delimiter=STR separate columns with STR\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
- --total output a summary\n\
+ --total output a summary\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
- -z, --zero-terminated line delimiter is NUL, not newline\n\
+ -z, --zero-terminated line delimiter is NUL, not newline\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (HELP_OPTION_DESCRIPTION, stdout);
fputs (VERSION_OPTION_DESCRIPTION, stdout);
diff --git a/src/join.c b/src/join.c
index 1accfd48d..52966cfc2 100644
--- a/src/join.c
+++ b/src/join.c
@@ -204,28 +204,28 @@ When FILE1 or FILE2 (not both) is -, read standard input.\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
\n\
- -a FILENUM also print unpairable lines from file FILENUM, where\n\
- FILENUM is 1 or 2, corresponding to FILE1 or FILE2\n\
- -e EMPTY replace missing input fields with EMPTY\n\
+ -a FILENUM also print unpairable lines from file FILENUM, where\n\
+ FILENUM is 1 or 2, corresponding to FILE1 or FILE2\n\
+ -e EMPTY replace missing input fields with EMPTY\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
- -i, --ignore-case ignore differences in case when comparing fields\n\
- -j FIELD equivalent to '-1 FIELD -2 FIELD'\n\
- -o FORMAT obey FORMAT while constructing output line\n\
- -t CHAR use CHAR as input and output field separator\n\
+ -i, --ignore-case ignore differences in case when comparing fields\n\
+ -j FIELD equivalent to '-1 FIELD -2 FIELD'\n\
+ -o FORMAT obey FORMAT while constructing output line\n\
+ -t CHAR use CHAR as input and output field separator\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
- -v FILENUM like -a FILENUM, but suppress joined output lines\n\
- -1 FIELD join on this FIELD of file 1\n\
- -2 FIELD join on this FIELD of file 2\n\
- --check-order check that the input is correctly sorted, even\n\
- if all input lines are pairable\n\
- --nocheck-order do not check that the input is correctly sorted\n\
- --header treat the first line in each file as field headers,\n\
- print them without trying to pair them\n\
+ -v FILENUM like -a FILENUM, but suppress joined output lines\n\
+ -1 FIELD join on this FIELD of file 1\n\
+ -2 FIELD join on this FIELD of file 2\n\
+ --check-order check that the input is correctly sorted, even\n\
+ if all input lines are pairable\n\
+ --nocheck-order do not check that the input is correctly sorted\n\
+ --header treat the first line in each file as field headers,\n\
+ print them without trying to pair them\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (_("\
- -z, --zero-terminated line delimiter is NUL, not newline\n\
+ -z, --zero-terminated line delimiter is NUL, not newline\n\
"), stdout);
fputs (HELP_OPTION_DESCRIPTION, stdout);
fputs (VERSION_OPTION_DESCRIPTION, stdout);
--
2.29.2
