Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ames!ucsd!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hpda!hpcupt1!hpisod2!decot
From: decot@hpisod2.HP.COM (Dave Decot)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Re: command line options (UNIX-specific)
Message-ID: <14020025@hpisod2.HP.COM>
Date: 13 Apr 88 00:07:33 GMT
References: <1036@mcgill-vision.UUCP>
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino
Lines: 21

When I want to evoke a usage message, usually I do something like this:

   ls -@
   find -@
   grep -@
   who -@

Try it.  On most systems for most (non-broken) commands, this will generate
some type of usage message.  To my knowledge, no commands currently use @
options for anything because of @'s history as a line-kill character.

I refuse to believe that anybody still uses @ as their line-kill
character, defaults notwithstanding.  If they do, they're having much
worse problems than they would have if the getopt standard declared
that -@ is reserved for use to elicit a usage message.

Besides, it's never been allowed by getopt, and it comes just before
the "letters", which apparently are the only allowed characters currently.

Dave Decot
hpda!decot