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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!sdcsvax!taylor
From: taylor@sdcsvax.UUCP (Dave Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng
Subject: Re: lets look at this stuff again (input flags)...
Message-ID: <3724@sdcsvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 2-Sep-83 16:28:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.3724
Posted: Fri Sep  2 16:28:19 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Sep-83 23:50:29 EDT
References: <2252@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: U.C. San Diego, CS Dept
Lines: 17

When I worked at Hughes Aircraft last summer, I rewrote some of the
system utilities for the project.  One method of input flags that I
tried that got rave reviews from those who later used the programs
was;
	program -inflag1 -inflag2 +inflag3 filename
ie;
	ls +long +size /usr/bin

where the program merely scanned the minimum distinguishable abbreviation
(MDA) to find out what the word was, and then ran along.  This has the
great advantage that as you proceed in your use of the system, you can
begin to abbreviate the input flags (note that '+' turns an option on
and '-' turns it off!)
	What do you all think?

						-- Dave Taylor
						UCSD Computer Science Dept