1237c90693cf
c_echo



Hello Andrew - 

CA>>>> I haven't used getopt() for some time now but I have
CA>>>> often wondered what the reasons are that most methods of
CA>>>> parsing the command line want to use switch characters
CA>>>> such as "/" or "-"? 

JB>>> usually to separate switches (ie commands) from filenames
JB>>> or other literals 

Whitespace works too. 

CA>> With argc available I don't see the need for the switch
CA>> chars. Order of entry should be sufficient. 

ac> Among other things it allows for optional switches, eg. 

ac> touch -t 030806 myfile 

ac> It's fairly obvious to anyone accustomed to command line
ac> switches will realise 030806 is the parameter to -t. On the
ac> other hand if you had to use 

ac> touch t 030806 myfile 

ac> then you would need to always three arguments. Plus it's
ac> not so obvious that argv[1] is a switch and that argv[2] is
ac> the parameter to argv[2]. Someone unfamilar with the touch
ac> utility may think that 030806 is a filename. 

I used "touch t030806 myfile" (no whitespace) and parsed from
whitespace to whitespace. 

ac> '/' is rarely used in UNIX as a switch character because it
ac> is a path delimeter. 

True. 

ac> The whole thing is a bit of a non-issue really... 

I see from recent messages that speed is considered a non-issue
now. I would imagine that size is also a non-issue for most. My
concern was to reduce size and to reduce the complexity (for
myself) when modifying the code later on. 

>
>        ,                          ,
>      o/      Charles.Angelich      \o       ,
>       __o/
>     / >          USA, MI           < \   __\__
 

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