GoboLinux Scripts

Notes on command-line switches

Many scripts accept command-line options. All options feature a short, one-letter form, and a long form. Following the GNU conventions, short form options are preceded by a single hyphen (as in -a, -b) and long form options are preceded by two hyphend (as in --foo, --bar).

• All command-line options have to be passed first, before other types of arguments (file names, package names, etc). In other words,

FooScript -m Foo

works, but

FooScript Foo -m      # WRONG! Switches must come first.

does not.

• Some command-line options accept arguments. These arguments must be passed as the word following the argument, both in short and long forms. For example, say that -s and –long are options that take a parameter. This is the correct way to use them:

FooScript -s value --long another

These are not recognized:

FooScript -s=value --long another      # WRONG! Use distinct tokens.

• Each option should be passed in a separate token, even when in short mode. If -a, -b and -c are options for an immaginary FooScript, then

FooScript -a -b -c blah.txt

is correct, but

FooScript -abc blah.txt      # WRONG! Options must be separated.

is not.

• All scripts have a --help option (or, in short form, -h). When a program that needs arguments is run without arguments, the help text will be displayed. (Note: Actually, not all scripts conform to this yet, but this is being worked on).