[TUHS] Systematic approach to command-line interfaces [ meta issues ]

[Larry McVoy]

On Sat, Jul 31, 2021 at 04:10:04PM -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 31, 2021 at 3:33 PM Jon Steinhart <jon at fourwinds.com> wrote:
> 
> > Richard Salz writes:
> > > On Sat, Jul 31, 2021 at 3:21 PM Jon Steinhart <jon at fourwinds.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > opinion, it doesn't add value to do something that's already been done
> > > > but differently; it detracts from value because now there's yet another
> > > > competing way to do something.
> > > >
> > >
> > > You mean like not using getopt and rolling your own?  Shrug.
> > >
> > > while ((i = getopt(argc, argv, "xxxxx:xxxx")) != -1)
> > >    switch (i) {
> > >    case ....
> > >   }
> > > argc -= optind;
> > > argv += optind;
> > >
> > > So I never got getopt().  One of my rules is that I don't use a library
> > > > in cases where the number of lines of gunk that that it takes to use a
> > > > library function is >= the number of lines to just write it myself.
> > >
> > >
> > > I don't know, what lines in the above are extra beyond what you write?
> > The
> > > last two if being generous I suppose.
> >
> > Well, in my opinion that's not really an accurate representation of using
> > getopt.
> >
> > I would of course write the #include line, and the table of options, which
> > would
> > end up being >= the number of lines that it takes me to do this...
> >
> >         while (--argc > 0) {
> >                 if (*(++argv)[0] == '-') {
> >                         for (p = *argv + 1; *p != '\0'; p++) {
> >                                 switch (*p) {
> >
> 
> Except for all the things this gets wrong, it's ok. The problem with
> inlining getopt
> is that you wind up with cases like -f foo'' on the command line being
> treated differently
> than '-ffoo'. 

BitKeeper's getopt had a different char for that: "f:" allows -ffoo or -f foo
but "f;" insists on no space.

With that, I'm bowing out of this thread, it's becoming a bike shed.