On Thu, 2005-07-14 at 20:40, John Martinez wrote:
> Am I the only one that doesn't like the --something-or-other options
> of GNU related software? Please don't do this to Solaris!
A couple years ago we had a very long, very painful discussion about
this topic under the name of "CLIP".
Opinions on both side of this issue tend to run very strong, and I
really don't want to relive the experience.
Given that there is a substantial body of code out there using various
getopt_long() variants, we felt that we had to provide it in core
solaris, but the (rougher than usual) consensus we came to was that, in
code we "owned":
0) as the GNU getopt_long() violates POSIX expectations for argument
parsing in some fine point which escapes me at the moment, we also
supply a getopt_clip() which doesn't.
1) all long-options must have a short-option equivalent.
2) utilities should only be written (enhanced) to the long options part
of the CLIP specification in "logical groups". (i.e., a group of
related utilities should be consistent in their use or non-use of long
options).
3) there is no compelling reason to inflict long options on the vast
majority of code in the ON consolidation; the initial reaction to anyone
seeking to do this should approximate "can't you find something better
to do?"
- Bill
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