Re: [Bashburn-info] Install.sh options

[Steven W. O. <st...@sy...>]

On Monday, Sep 29th 2008 at 12:54 -0000, quoth Nick Warne:

=>On Mon, 29 Sep 2008 11:21:52 -0400 (EDT)
=>"Steven W. Orr" <st...@sy...> wrote:
=>
=>> On Monday, Sep 29th 2008 at 09:18 -0000, quoth Steven W. Orr:
=>> 
=>> =>On Monday, Sep 29th 2008 at 06:37 -0000, quoth Nick Warne:
=>> =>
=>> =>=>
=>> =>=>I have hardened the Install file options, after I noticed some
=>> strange =>=>behaviour with silly options (i.e. -uninstall ).
=>> =>=>
=>> =>=>There is still a big issue if you use:
=>> =>=>
=>> =>=>-prefix=/usr
=>> =>=>
=>> =>=>The install script will install into a directory called 'refix'
=>> in the =>=>current directory.
=>> =>=>
=>> =>=>Nick
=>> =>
=>> =>That should not happen. I'll look at it. :-( (after svn comes back
=>> up)
=>> 
=>> Nick, I haven't seen the change you made, but let me explain what's 
=>> happening.
=>> 
=>> The getopt/getopts calls are SVR4 compliant. That means that if you
=>> have a bunch of legal options, like a, b and c, then
=>> 
=>> foo -abc 
=>> is the same as
=>> 
=>> foo -a -b -c
=>> 
=>> In this case, we have long options. Every longopt has to have a 
=>> corresponding single letter option (to be SVR4 complient). In this
=>> case, we have -p and -u and -h. They have --prefix, --uninstall, and
=>> --help as long version.
=>> 
=>> The -p takes an argument, so if you say
=>> 
=>> Install.sh -prefix
=>> 
=>> then you get what the doctor ordered. You get -p with an option arg
=>> of refix. We probably should not be coding defensively around that.
=>> If the user was going to use the long option correctly then he would
=>> say
=>> 
=>> Install.sh --prefix dirname 
=>> or
=>> Install.sh --prefix=dirname 
=>> 
=>> But to just say -prefix is just wrong as the basis for something we
=>> should worry about.
=>> 
=>> Also note, if you say -p with no arg then that is caught as an error.
=>> 
=>> Does this help?
=>> 
=>
=>Well, I find it a bit brain dead if a user mistypes '--prefix' as
=>'-prefix' and it installs into a directory called 'refix'.
=>
=>BTW, SVN is back up

yabut your solution seems to imply that short options should be 
constrained to uppercase (even if they *don't* take an argument). Remember 
that creating options is not just a question of SVR4 compatibility; it's 
also a question of following conventions to make it more familiar.

e.g., -h == help
      -v == verbose
      -V == Version info
      -c == alternate configfile
      -d == directory spec
      -i == install
      -l == long output
      -n == don't do it but tell me what you want to do
      -o == output
      -q == query status returned
      -R == recurse
      -t == set a type
      -u == uninstall

-- 
steveo at syslang dot net TMMP1 http://frambors.syslang.net/
Do you have neighbors who are not frambors? Steven W. Orr