Re: [Structuredtext-develop] Some problems with option lists

[Richard J. <rj...@ek...>]

On Wed, 20 Feb 2002 12:42, David Goodger wrote:
> Richard Jones wrote:
> > 1. the leading dashes are removed from the short_option and long_option.
> > Is this intentional? If so, I'll re-add the dashes, but it seems odd.
>
> Yes, it's intentional. The various option types are uniformly represented
> in the tree. Once the options have been parsed into "long_option" or
> "short_option" elements, the dashes are implicit; they're boilerplate text,
> redundant and uninteresting. It's text to be inserted by the Writer.

OK.


> > 2. similarly, the arguments lose the '='.
>
> "=" are lost for the same reason: redundancy. The back-end Writer may
> choose to always use "--option=arg" or always use "--option arg", but it
> should be consistent.
>
> > This becomes ambiguous:
>
> I don't see the ambiguity. Please explain.

I believe it's up to the original source - which knows how the program 
accepts arguments - to determine whether an '=' is required, not the output 
writer. Assuming that all programs that accept long arguments must use '=' is 
dangerous.


> > 3. short options can't have '=' arguments:
> >
> >       -DC_DEFINE_FLAG=value
> >
> > results in an error.
>
> Correct. Short options never have '=' (not on any system I've seen,
> anyhow). Short option names are never more than one letter long, either --
> that's why they're short! Your example is actually equivalent to::

The above is a fairly standard define argument for a C compiler. For example:

   -DHAVE_CONFIG_H
   -DPREFIX='"$(prefix)"'

Is used all over the place in autoconf-generate Makefiles. In the above, the 
-D is the option, the rest of the text is the option argument.


> > 4. any chance of a format like:
> >
> >        -i / --info      get information
>
> I chose ", " as the separator from observation of the "--help" output of
> various tools. I don't see the need for two ways to spell it. Also, "/" is
> used for VMS/DOS-style options, so it may be confusing here.

OK, and it's documented, so I'm happy. Sorry I didn't notice that in the spec.


     Richard

ps. 90% of the html formatter is done - biblio and some reference stuff still 
to be done. I'm also going to assume from the terminology above that the 
formatter should be renamed "HTMLWriter"?