Subject: Re: getopt replacement, part 2
To: Todd Vierling <tv@wasabisystems.com>
From: Thomas Klausner <wiz@danbala.ifoer.tuwien.ac.at>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 12/06/2000 18:44:21
Hi!

> : If we really mean it, we should also remove all uses of GNU
> : getopt{,1}.{c,h} files in src/gnu/ -- otherwise there will be some
> : special programs that _do_ reorder their arguments.
> 
> If programs want to replace getopt, they should be allowed to do so, as that
> is how they will function out-of-the-box.  We should not supplant those
> versions unless we're identical to them (and we obviously won't be).

This is a question of consistency. Most of these programs just don't
test if there's a getopt in the system they are installing on. The
issue here is, if we want to be able to do
	grep somestring * -r
and have this interpreted as 
	grep -r somestring *
because it is GNU grep, and that is how GNU grep behaves, or if we
want to have a consistent behaviour among _all_ programs on NetBSD,
independent of whether they are GNU or not.

I'm not sure yet what I think of that, FWIW.

Bye,
 Thomas

-- 
Thomas Klausner - wiz@danbala.tuwien.ac.at
A man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no
more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of life getting
his living. -- Henry David Thoreau