Comments on UNIX command option syntax

[Stanley Friesen]

In article <1260 at wanginst.UUCP> perlman at wanginst.UUCP (Gary Perlman) writes:
>
>                 Proposed Syntax Standard
>                 For UNIX* System Commands
>
>RULE  4:  All options must be delimited by ``-''.

	Doesn't allow on/off toggles.
>
>RULE  6:  The first option-argument following an option
>          must be preceded by white space.

	I feel that space optional is more compatible with existing
practice, too many programs do it both ways. I would certainly hate to
say "nroff -m e file" instead of "nroff -me file", since I think of
the 'me' as a unit, that is I think the latter is more readable.
>
>RULE  9:  All options precede operands on the command line.
>
	This cannot be applied to compilers and loaders, where the
library options *must* come after or among the files to get the
correct semantics. It also makes switching options during processing
impossible, which is necessary for some sorts of sequential
processing.

>RULE 11:  The order of options relative to one another
>          should not matter.

	Rules out sequential processing.
-- 

				Sarima (Stanley Friesen)

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