[CC vm-dev]
On Sat, May 6, 2017 at 7:04 PM, K K Subbu kksubbu.ml@gmail.com wrote:
On Friday 05 May 2017 02:11 PM, Andrei Chis wrote:
... ./pharo -help unknown option: -help Common <option>s: --help print this help message, then exit
Then `./pharo -help` returns an exit code of 1 on mac/linux while `./pharo --help` returns a exit code of 0 on mac and 1 on linux.
It is --help on Pharo and -help on other compiles (see below). Can anyone shed light on the legacy compatibility comment in :
---- platforms/unix/vm/sqUnixMain.c ---- 1421 /* legacy compatibility */ /*** XXX to be removed at some time ***/ 1422
Looking just at just the file, it appears this is comment is strongly associated with the code below, but git blame [1] indicates the comment is 7 years old, while the code below is 7 months old. ???
[1] https://github.com/OpenSmalltalk/opensmalltalk-vm/blame/995e7aedc3b5aeb76904...
cheers -ben
1423 #ifdef PharoVM 1424 # define VMOPTION(arg) "--"arg 1425 #else 1426 # define VMOPTION(arg) "-"arg 1427 #endif
It's still not clear why running the vm to print the help of the version
should exit with an error code.
Agreed. I think --help and --version should return 0. I think the 1 was to catch incorrect/unknown arguments.
If I learn the rationale behind the change, I can propose a patch to fix this.
Regards .. Subbu
On Sunday 07 May 2017 06:35 AM, Ben Coman wrote:
---- platforms/unix/vm/sqUnixMain.c ---- 1421 /* legacy compatibility */ /*** XXX to be removed at some time ***/ 1422Looking just at just the file, it appears this is comment is strongly associated with the code below, but git blame [1] indicates the comment is 7 years old, while the code below is 7 months old. ???
Thanks for moving this thread to vm-dev.
The latter code probably tried to get options to conform to unix convention of using single dash for single letter options and double dash for word options for all its applications. This convention applies to unix apps but need not apply to virtual machines like qemu-* or squeak*. Both these VMs use single dash for all their options.
I feel it is fine to stick to single dash for all squeak options but have the code accept both single and double dashes as prefixes. Generate strictly but accept liberally. All our scripts will use single dash, but if someone types in double-dash due to habit, the VM will recover gracefully.
Esteban? What do you think?
I can generate a patch to fix this, if there is a general consensus on this list.
Regards .. Subbu
vm-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org
-
Ben Coman -
K K Subbu