A convention for -file

[Moderator, John Quarterman]

From: weemba at brahms.berkeley.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 86 23:12:03 PST
Organization: University of California, Berkeley

In article <6121 at ut-sally.UUCP> Guy Harris writes:
>There's another fix, already implemented by all the versions of "getopt"
>running around - an argument of the form "--" means no other arguments are
>to be interpreted as flags, regardless of their form.

But such breaks on commands that take flags after the argument name, like
cc, lxref, od.

>						        Since this one has
>already been implemented by many commands, it is preferable.

Huh??  Why bother debating standards then?  I once got the argument that
integer division should round towards 0, not towards minus infinity, since
that's how Fortran did it.  I was new to the net then, and I was stunned.

I do not count appeal to the past or even the present as the definition of
preferable, although I agree that it can be a major factor.  But I dislike
it when it is paraded as THE reason for saying its preferable.  Is UNIX
supposed to turn into an official fossil now?

I say my suggestion is cleaner and more versatile, thus it is preferable.
The required reprogramming would not be that complicated--just a minor
nuisance.

But if you wish appeals to history, my suggestion is after all the same
as the ancient doubled quote => single quote within quoted strings con-
vention from days of yore.  In retrospect, it's perhaps a bit surprising
that something like this wasn't adopted from the beginning.

Not that I care.  *I* don't put dashes at the beginning of my file names.
(Joke, everyone, just a joke.)

ucbvax!brahms!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720

Volume-Number: Volume 7, Number 97