Re: Unknown command line options and --help

[Mike Newman <mike greatnorthern demon co uk>]

On Mon, 2003-04-21 at 15:37, Ole Laursen wrote:
> Mariano Suarez-Alvarez <msuarezalvarez arnet com ar> writes:
> 
> > Is it a GNOME policy to ignore unknown command line options?
> 
> I think most GNOME programs never really check their command line
> options, none of the ones I've written do. So people probably forget it.

Depends on the program, what it does, who calls it and from where. As
for ignoring things which it doesn't understand, this is probably the
right thing to do for stuff run from the GUI which might otherwise cause
very confusing errors which the user may not be able to fix.

> > And: wouldn't it be nice if we had some kind of global policy about having a
> > --verbose-help or whatever so that we only get the full huge list of cmdline
> > options listed on each and every program's --help about things as hermetic
> > as --oaf-ior-fd and friends unless they are explicitely requested?
> 
> I think it would be nice. You should probably direct the request to
> desktop-devel though so that it gets noticed.

there is --usage which provides a brief summary, but not perhaps quite
what has been suggested here.

Mike