command line arguments

[John Quarterman]

some commands take arguments as

command -abcdefg filename

and some as

command -a -b -c -d -e -f -g filename

It would be great if this was standardised.
Post this if you like: it's gleaned from a book 'Unix for beginners' by
Miller and Boyle at the University of Leeds, UK
-- 
 'He had a certain naive charm, but no muscle!'
                     Frank N. Furter in the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

+-------------------------+------------------------------------------+
| Douglas Spencer         | {decvax,garfield,okstate,philabs,seismo} |
|  Maths Institute        |      !mcvax!ukc!warwick!daisy!maugg      |
|   University of Warwick |------------------------------------------|
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[ The P1003 draft standard has little to say about commands, as it's
mostly concerned with system calls and library routines.  Varying option
formats are a nuisance, though.  -mod]
-- 

John Quarterman, jsq at ut-sally.ARPA, {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!jsq