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Re: bug in option parsing: msg#00161

sysutils.automake.bugs

Subject: Re: bug in option parsing

Thanks for your quick patches!

Alexandre Duret-Lutz wrote:

Eric> Finally, it would be nice if --help had a synonym of -h,
Eric> and --version had a synonym of -V.

I disagree on this point. I prefer to give people the habit to
use --help and --version, which are the only options that are
expected to be supported uniformly by all GNU programs. Also,
if `-V' was added now some people could use it when writing a
`bootscrap.sh' (sic) script that checks the version, and later
discover it fails with older versions: a frustrating waste of
time.

A convincing enough argument. I had asked about this because the cygwin automake wrapper (and probably wrappers provided by several other distributions), designed to choose between automake 1.4 and 1.9, was supporting -h and -V even though automake itself was not. I guess this particular bug is in the wrapper script, then.

--
Someday, I might put a cute statement here.

Eric Blake ebb9@xxxxxxx





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