On Thu, 8 Jun 2000, Simon Burge wrote:

# Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2000 09:47:58 +1000
# From: Simon Burge <simonb@netbsd.org>
# To: tech-userlevel@netbsd.org
# Subject: ps(1) sysv silliness
# 
# Folks,
# 
# I've got some relatively simple mods to ps(1) so that it uses SysV-type
# command-line argument parsing instead of the traditional BSD-style
# parsing if a certain environment variable is set (I chose PS_SYSV but
# Luke suggested that there might be a `global' "use-sysv-arguments"
# variable that other programs could recognise as well).

BSD-style args have typically been keys (as long as I have used ps,
i.e. "ps ax") while SysV has used option args (i.e. "ps -ef").
I know this is probably an abominable concept ("EWWW LINUX!"), but
I always found it kinda cool for ps to divine what the user
wanted -- this was a nice example of DWIM code.

Why not do that?  I never type "ps -ax" or "ps ef" :-)

#  a) So pukable that noone in their right mind would ever use it?

If it must be done this way, I suppose -- see above.

#  b) Useful so we can tick another SVID-type standards box?

				--*greywolf;
--
BSD: We Suck Less