Earlier quoted context omitted.
> as is convention for named options on the command line. Gosh, I really wish that people would follow a convention for named options on the command line. I don't even really care which one, as long as they were all consistent in picking one.
I've seen /, -, --, and +. Any other ones leap to mind? I wonder if there's a complete list somewhere.
> python -v
or > python —-version
It’s good practice to offer both. It should also be possible to set multiple options at once by appending one after another in short form following a single hyphen: > ls -alR
is the same as > ls -a -l -R
Long-form options are technically a GNU thing [0] and are not mentioned in the POSIX standard, but they’re conventional enough now that I think it’s good practice to include them in any CLI program.There are also a number of looser conventions about the meaning of certain short-form options [1].
0. https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Command_002dLin...