command line arguments

[John Quarterman]

> some commands take arguments as
> 
> command -abcdefg filename
> 
> and some as
> 
> command -a -b -c -d -e -f -g filename
> 
> It would be great if this was standardised.

Although commands like find will, I suppose always be renegades, doesn't
conformity to getopt() for all future commands not explicitly excused from
conformity by some ANSI committee take care of the problem?  It seems that
this is (or at least SHOULD be) simply a problem of living with history.

By the way, I understand that the central concern of the committee is in
the area of system calls, but aren't y'all going to have a subcommittee
responsible for commands, shells, etc analogous to the C committee's
"library" subcommittee?  I would hope so.

[ Would some more knowledgable P1003 committee member please comment
on this?  -mod]

If this kind of stuff should be sent to ut-sally!std-unix instead of
ut-sally!jsq, let me know.

[ The convention I have adopted is that mail to ut-sally!std-unix
is a submission to the newsgroup, while mail to ut-sally!jsq (or,
better, ut-sally!std-unix-request) is mail about the newsgroup,
though I may, as I did for this message, reply with a request
for permission to post.  -mod]

bc
--
  /  \    Bill Crews
 ( bc )   Cyb Systems, Inc
  \__/    Austin, Texas

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John Quarterman, jsq at ut-sally.ARPA, {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!jsq