Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!iuvax!bobmon
From: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: getopt
Summary: choices for invocation options
Message-ID: <22421@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 21 Jun 89 04:25:51 GMT
References: <782@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> <13730@haddock.ima.isc.com> <1989Jun19.153426.21238@eci386.uucp>
Reply-To: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante)
Organization: malkaryotic
Lines: 21

jmm@eci386.UUCP (John Macdonald) <1989Jun19.153426.21238@eci386.uucp> :
-}
-}"-#" is a not uncommon debugging option.  I think ";" is a better choice,
-}since it does half of what ":" does%, and because I don't know of any code
-}that uses "-;" as an option.
-}
-}Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint
-}________
-}% This pun works only if you pronounce them as "semicolon" and "colon".
-
-Surely it would be better (except for punning purposes) to use -? to indicate
-an optional argument.  Getopt precludes having a useful ? option since the
-return of ? indicates an error occurred.  The ? is also suggests that the
-option is "conditionally present".


I believe that some command-line interpreters (viz., csh?) will attempt
to expand `?' as a wildcard unless it's escaped, at which point using it
becomes a nuisance.  I'm not too comfortable with `;' and `:', either,
as some CLI, somewhere, may treat these as statement delimiters or
something.  Letters seem like the safest bet to me....