Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!umd5!cvl!elsie!ado
From: ado@elsie.UUCP (Arthur David Olson)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: command line options
Message-ID: <8047@elsie.UUCP>
Date: 29 Apr 88 23:17:13 GMT
Organization: NIH-LEC, Bethesda, MD
Lines: 14

Having a "usage" command that looks through the executable (a la "what")
to find a usage message makes it hard to produce "correct" output.

For example, the command
	usage date
such produce a message of the ilk
	date: usage is date [-u]
for normal users and a message such as
	date: usage is date [-u] [ yymmddhhmm[.ss] ]
(on a BSD-based system) for the root user.

There are other situations where usage is dependent on things that can't be
known at compile time.
-- 
	ado@ncifcrf.gov			ADO is a trademark of Ampex.