Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [BUG] tla dosen't handle '--' as end of option argument

[Yann Droneaud]

Miles Bader <address@hidden> writes:

> On Sat, Sep 11, 2004 at 05:15:57PM -0700, Tom Lord wrote:
>>     > '--' is use as command line switch, so it's not transparent and don't
>>     > follow POSIX behavor.
>>     [....]
>>     > This make tla behave differently than other GNU tools .
>> 
>> The posix standards are mosty a record of historic accidents with some
>> never-fully-done thoughts on cleaning them up.
>> 
>> The GNU conventions are mostly some thoughts on cleaning up tradition
>> by layering on something fancier, but those thoughts were never fully
>> developed either, afaict.
>
> In any case, I think the way "--" is used in most tla commands is close
> enough in spirit to the `posix use' (it protects the "filenames which may
> start with -" portion of the command line from preceding options)

It does more like this, '--' change the behavior of a command, so it's a
plain command switch, a short cut for a "classical" switch (--files or
something like that).

POSIX tell us, that '--' should be transparent on the command line, and
change only the behavior of the commande line parser, not the
behavior/work/purpose of the tool.

ls <files>
ls -- <files>
ls <files> --

are equivalents calls to a command if <files> doesn't contain files
beginning with '-'.
And it doesn't change the way ls will display your files.

>  that it
> should cause few real problems (and the way it's used in tla is actually very
> handy for the user; if it were removed, there should be an equally handy
> replacement, which likely would be _less_ intuitive to anyone accustomed to
> the typical use of "--").
>

but for a bare POSIX user, the use of '--' in tla is not intuitive ;)

The simplier, uglyier solution is to add a command alias "undo-files" 
or adding a switch '--files'.

(and why not '++' <files ...> ... ok, just kidding here ;).

-- 
Yann Droneaud (aka Meuh) <address@hidden>
http://meuh.org/ | http://sherkan.tuxfamily.net/~meuh/
Une vache perdue sur Internet | A cow lost in the Internet
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