[Python-Dev] Python long command line options

[Nick Coghlan]

Heiko Wundram wrote:
> Anyway, back on topic, I personally agree with the people who posted to 
> comp.lang.python that --version (and possibly --help, possibly other long 
> parameters too) would be useful additions to Pythons command-line parameters, 
> as it's increasingly getting more common amongst GNU and BSD utilities to 
> support these command-line options to get information about the utility at 
> hand (very popular amongst system administrators) and to use long commandline 
> options to be able to easily see what an option does when encountered in a 
> shell script of some sort.

+0 from me, as long as the 'best guess' bit removed. Otherwise '-v' would be 
"verbose", while "--v" was "version". And if we added '--verbose' later, 
scripts relying on '--v' would start getting an error. Much better to force 
people to spell the option right in the first place.

And any such patch would require additional tests in test_cmd_line.py if the 
new option is equivalent to an option that's already tested by that file.

Being able to give less cryptic names to the various options would be good for 
shell scripts and sys calls.

e.g.:

-c  ==> --command
-d  ==> --debugparser
-E  ==> --noenv
-h  ==> --help
-i  ==> --interactive
-m  ==> --runmodule
-O  ==> <no long equivalent>
-OO ==> <no long equivalent>
-Q  ==> --div old, --div warn, --div warnall, --div new
-S  ==> --nosite
-t  ==> --warntabs
-tt ==> --errtabs
-u  ==> --unbuffered
-v  ==> --verbose
-V  ==> --version
-W  ==> --warn
-x  ==> --skipfirstline

As far as I know, the only place these are documented is in "python -h" and 
the Linux man pages.

And good luck to you if you encounter a sys call containing "python -U". Even 
though not recognising the meaning of the option is likely to be the least of 
your worries in that case, at least you'd have some idea *why* some Python 
scripts start collapsing in a screaming heap when you try it ;)

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia
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