[Gambas-user] Args help , most other places is -?

[Tim Dickson]

see.
https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/V1_chap12.html
guidleine 3.
limits short (single character) options to alnum which does not include 
punct such as "?"
obviously this is for utilities, but is generally used in general 
unix/linux applications as well.
? is a dos/windows convention, using /? but this is not used in 
unix/linux as -h or --help is convention and ? is a test operator and a 
wildcard in scripting.

On 04/07/2022 11:17, Benoit Minisini wrote:
> Le 04/07/2022 à 11:43, Bruce Steers a écrit :
>>
>>
>> On Sun, 3 Jul 2022 at 16:59, Benoit Minisini 
>> <benoit.minisini at gambas-basic.org 
>> <mailto:benoit.minisini at gambas-basic.org>> wrote:
>>
>>     Le 02/07/2022 à 13:04, Bruce Steers a écrit :
>>      >
>>      >
>>      > On Thu, 30 Jun 2022 at 13:21, Benoit Minisini
>>      > <benoit.minisini at gambas-basic.org
>>     <mailto:benoit.minisini at gambas-basic.org>
>>      > <mailto:benoit.minisini at gambas-basic.org
>>     <mailto:benoit.minisini at gambas-basic.org>>> wrote:
>>      >
>>      >     Le 30/06/2022 à 02:21, Bruce Steers a écrit :
>>      >      >
>>      >      > Fair point. Now I'm thinking harder I can't think of 
>> any other
>>      >     reason
>>      >      > myself other than -?
>>      >      > Maybe I could make it check for -? With a property?
>>      >     Args.QuestionMarkIsHelp
>>      >
>>      >     Just let the user handle both cases if he wants, and
>>     implement both
>>      >     options in the default help management.
>>      >
>>      >
>>      > Problem was what if the user wants to use -? for help and -h for
>>      > something else?  It was impossible as Args uses -h if you want it
>>     to or
>>      > not there was no choice.
>>      > Last commit i removed the HelpShortName property that let you
>>     change the
>>      > help short name and replaced it for a simpler NoHelp property.
>>      >
>>      > Is that more acceptable?
>>      > If Args.NoHelp = True then neither -h or --help is used and you
>>     can then
>>      > enter what ever you like manually.
>>      >
>>      > Respects
>>      > BruceS
>>      >
>>
>>     'gb.args' is for implementing a standard command-line argument 
>> support.
>>     As soon as the user wants to do something "stupid" (like using 
>> '-h' for
>>     something other than help), I think 'gb.args' must not support it.
>>
>>     This is the same reason why I think implementing simple option merge
>>     ('-ab' == '-a -b') must not be optional.
>>
>>     Regards,
>>
>>
>> Sorry my friend but i can't help but disagree a bit.
>> Personally i think -? is even better than -h for help, because it's 
>> language universal.
>
> Indeed, but it seems there is some sort of implicit standard of using 
> "-h" for help almost everywhere (options are in english).
>
> I wanted 'gb.args' to implement that implicit standard, not to handle 
> all the different possible command-line syntaxes, so that it is the 
> simplest possible.
>
> For the same reason, I think grouping single character options is part 
> of that implicit standard, and so I don't think it should be optional. 
> "-ab" has no meaning in that syntax.
>
> (I personnaly don't like these programs that do not follow this 
> standard as much as possible).
>
> If you start adding option for this and that, you will never finish, 
> as there is a lot of different syntaxes possible. Maybe you should 
> create another component, an advanced version of gb.args?
>
> On the contrary, a possible "standard" command-line syntax that should 
> be added to 'gb.args' is the support for "sub-command" of complex 
> tools, like "git", where you type "git" followed by the sub command, 
> and then the options that change according to the command.
>
> Regards,
>


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