Re: Long help option

[Antonio Diaz Diaz]

Hello Adam,

Adam Tuja wrote:
> there is a thing with the help (-h) that makes it increasingly harder to use -
> it's its length. With every next release it becomes bigger and bigger and does
> not fit on the screen any more. For the program that that makes it's simplicity
> an asset it's a little paradox.

Simplicity of format should not imply "scarcely documented tool". Have you 
tried 'lzip -h | less', or 'man lzip' ?

> I attempted to make it simpler and fit on the screen. I slightly
> rearranged it with more application related things on the top and version
> and help, on the bottom. I used different kinds of brackets to denote
> optional/required/default/miscellaneous arguments*.

The --help output is used by help2man to create the man page. What is the 
effect of your rearrangement in the man page produced?

> To  recoclie both needs - brief, quick help and detailed information I brought
> long help option for detailed help (-H, --help-long).

This is a possibility, but I'm about to release lzip 1.23-rc1 in a few days, 
so it will have to wait until 1.24.

> All detailed help messages are available in long help option available.
> I prepared three versions of main.cc, using different ways to implement this
> long help option - using if()s, like some do (main.cc-if-printf.cc), array
> (main.cc-arr.cc) and array with -hh option (main.cc-arr-hh.cc).
> Everything is in temporal tarball (https://files.fm/f/eknq6kwys).

I get the following message from that page:

"Your browser does not support Javascript. To use this page turn on 
JavaScript or use another browser."

Could you send the compressed tarball with the versions of main.cc to my 
private address? It can't be too large. Thanks.


Regards,
Antonio.