getopt: where's da dicts?????

[Fred L. Drake, Jr.]

Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake at acm.org> wrote:
 >   Since the current behavior of getopt is to allow both, I'd be
 > inclined to keep it that way.  There are lots of applications that
 > already allow both (Python & otherwise; I don't think it's original
 > behavior with getopt), I'm inclined to allow both rather than just
 > one, and wouldn't want optional arguments to screw that up.

D'Arcy J.M. Cain writes:
 > It is possible to add optional arguments without messing up regular
 > use.  You just have to put restrictions on the use of flags that
 > take optional arguments but that's fine in an extension anyway.  See

  Perhaps it's not enough of a problem; I'm thinking of the case where 
the applications command-line UI is "extended" by making a required
value optional.  What was once:

      myprog -f value

would no longer work if the value for -f became optional and required
a syntax change.  Humans can (sometimes) be re-trained to type things
the new way.  Getting humans to grep through hundreds of scripts that
may contain the offending syntax is harder. ;)  (Hint: "grep
'myprog.*-f' *.sh" isn't even close to good enough!)
  Breakage is evil, don't make it too easy!


  -Fred

--
Fred L. Drake, Jr.	     <fdrake at acm.org>
Corporation for National Research Initiatives