command line options

[David H. Brierley]

In article <770 at xyzzy.UUCP> goudreau at rtp48.UUCP (Bob Goudreau) writes:
>...Unless someone comes up with a command that allows 'h', 'e', 'l' and
>'p' as boolean flags!
>
>Perhaps 4.4BSD will add 'e' and 'h' as options to ls. :-) :-)

I once wrote a program for a project I was working on and by the time the
other people on the project finished requesting various features I had used
up almost every letter in the alphabet.  Some letters were even used twice,
upper and lower case (I know it's gross but until I can invent an alphabet
with 64 letters I'm stuck :-).  As I recall, 'p' required an aditional value
but 'h', 'e', and 'l' were all binary so it was possible to specify the
options as "-help value".

Before anyone flames me about how a program with that many options should be
broken up into smaller pieces that could be fitted togethor with pipes, I know.
This program was designed to be used by persons who just barely understood
that the piece of hardware they were sitting in front of was simply a terminal
and the actual computer was somewhere else.  For them to be able to comprehend
the ins and outs of UNIX and be able to effectively use pipes and stuff was
way beyond my abilities to teach (any way beyond my patience).
-- 
David H. Brierley
Home: dave at galaxia.zone1.com   ...!rayssd!galaxia!dave
Work: dhb at rayssd.ray.com       {sun,decuac,cbosgd,gatech,necntc,ukma}!rayssd!dhb