Hi Ralf, Eric, and all bug-automake readers. On Friday 19 November 2010, Stefano Lattarini wrote: > On Thursday 18 November 2010, Stefano Lattarini wrote: > > On Thursday 18 November 2010, Ralf Wildenhues wrote: > > > > > I think --help should work whereever it is put on a command line, > > > except after -- or right after an option which requires an argument > > > > I disagree; that would complicate the implementation without providing > > any real advantage for the users IMHO. > > > > > The point being that I type > > > > > > $ foo --zork --barf > > > foo: blabla error, see --help > > > > > > and then type <up><space>--help<enter> to find out more. > > Or type <up><ctrl-a><alt-f><space>--help<enter> to find out more. > > Or even type "foo --help" to find out more. These are not much > > more complex or lacking in usability, IMHO. > > > Besides, in the particular case of automake, how often do automake > or aclocal get invoked directly? To my experience, they are almost > always invoked by autoreconf, ./bootstrap, or some custom autogen.sh > script. > > > > Let's address this on bug-standards before changing any programs. > Now a decision has been reached on bug-standards *not* to tighten the specification about the behaviour of --help and --version: <http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-standards/2010-11/msg00010.html>
Considering that, do you agree to simplify the automake/aclocal option parsing by not trying to process --help/--version options encountered after invalid options? Regards, Stefano
