Re: argp

[Miles Bader]

Keith Simmons <address@hidden> writes:
> I'm an intern at Sun working on a possible port of your gnu argp to
> solaris. ... In order to get final approval on my project and to allow
> sun to maintain argp in the future, I need to create a specification
> which details exactly what syntax argp accepts.

You mean the command-line syntax, right?

> I was wondering if there was a specific spec upon which you based the
> argp implementation.

Not really.  It's intended to implement the `GNU standard style' of
command line syntax, and I'm not aware of any one place where that is
specified exactly.

It's partially described in the `GNU Coding Standards' document, but
that doesn't go into any detail, and I suppose the real authority is the
implementation of `getopt_long' (which argp currently calls to do the
parsing, though that's an implementation detail [and undesirable for
several reasons]); there might be some more info in the comments of that
source file.

The layout of --help output etc. is intended to mimic existing GNU
programs, but I'm not aware of any specification for this (i.e. when I
had a question, I just ran `ls --help' and saw what it did).

I've CC'd my reply to the `bug-gnu-utils' mailing list; perhaps a reader
there has some more insight.

> I can probably create a decent specification based on experimentation
> and online documentation, but I think it's best to start at the
> source.  If you don't have anything of the sort, no problem.

BTW, there's been some interest in a portable standalone implementation
of argp; several projects use it internally, but I'm not aware of a
standalone library.

I don't know what Sun's requirements are, but perhaps some effort can
be shared in this.

Thanks,

-Miles
-- 
Come now, if we were really planning to harm you, would we be waiting here, 
 beside the path, in the very darkest part of the forest?