command line options (UNIX-specific)

[Dave Decot]

When I want to evoke a usage message, usually I do something like this:

   ls -@
   find -@
   grep -@
   who -@

Try it.  On most systems for most (non-broken) commands, this will generate
some type of usage message.  To my knowledge, no commands currently use @
options for anything because of @'s history as a line-kill character.

I refuse to believe that anybody still uses @ as their line-kill
character, defaults notwithstanding.  If they do, they're having much
worse problems than they would have if the getopt standard declared
that -@ is reserved for use to elicit a usage message.

Besides, it's never been allowed by getopt, and it comes just before
the "letters", which apparently are the only allowed characters currently.

Dave Decot
hpda!decot