Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!boulder!stan!garya
From: garya@stan.UUCP (Gary Aitken)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: XrmParseCommand and command flags
Keywords: XrmParseCommand
Message-ID: <760@stan.stan.UUCP>
Date: 7 Apr 89 17:11:13 GMT
Organization: Solbourne Computer Inc., Longmont, Co.
Lines: 20

I have vague recollections of this being discussed already, but I can't
remember the results, so here goes again.

XrmParseCommand accepts a prefix as a valid match.  I.e. if an
XrmOptionDescRec specifies "-synchronous", then "-s" is considered to be
a match.  This causes confusion and difficulty when one considers an
application which has a flag such as "-s".  This behavior is particularly
questionable when one considers that adding subsequent "standard" options
can potentially prevent existing applications from working correctly, since
the name space for potential conflicts is the universe.  For example, since
no "standard" options currently exist beginning with "-p", an application
will work correctly with flags of -p; but if at some later time a standard
option such as "-popcorn" is added, the application will no longer work.

One way around the problem is for the application to superimpose an options
table onto the option tables already in use.  However, this implies that the
application will have be modified to use the resource manager mechanism to
get/check for arguments, since they will be stripped out of argv.

Is there some easy way to disable the prefix matching in the resource manager?