> On Sat, Mar 01, 2014 at 21:34, Denis Fondras wrote: > > Hi all, > > > > I've just discovered that OpenBSD vmstat(8) can use wait and count > > arguments without using -c/-w. Here is a small patch to mention this > > usage in the manual : > > This is a holdover from olden days. If I could kill it, I would, so > maybe best not to rely on it.
That's right. Back in the grand old days when the CSRG guys would regularily join in the drum circle at the edge of UCB campus, argv handling was still very different from program to program, and getopt() was still young. If you dig around, you'll find quite a few commands with hidden arguments like this, and most have Berkeley origins. The most common ones are so familiar that they cannot be removed, there are even a few cases of POSIX bending over backwards to admit they exist. A good example is ps(1). You don't need the '-'.
