Unix command line conventions over time

Post by sph » Sat, May 07, 2022, 3:38 PM UTC

mort96 wrote: post #89

frederikvs wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think remembering rm is the issue. It's remembering all the options in all their variations. Take the ps command. I tend to use it as "ps aux" - but I have no idea what the a, the u, or the x stand for individually. I know other people who use "ps -ef". (Also note the difference : the aux doesn't require a dash, and if you accidentally put it in, it doesn't do what you want it to do.) As another example : the…

My favorite example: `cp -r` is recursive. `scp -r` is recursive. `chmod -r` removes read permissions; `chmod -R` is recursive.

Post by mort96 » Sat, May 07, 2022, 3:40 PM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #96

mort96 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect GCC thinks of its options as mainly single-option short options and double-hyphen long options. It's reasonable to interpret things like `-funsafe-math-optimizations` to mean option `-f` with argument `unsafe-math-optimizations`, just like how `-Dfoo` means option `-D` with argument `foo`. Unless you were thinking about something else.

Just go through the docs. They have a ton of single hyphen long opts that aren't a letter with argument.

Post by kps » Sat, May 07, 2022, 4:02 PM UTC

spijdar wrote: post #84

sph wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also ps. Everyone uses their own incantation and never strays from it. I use `ps aux` and used to use `ps -def` on Solaris. Some options require a dash, some don’t, it’s such a confusing CLI I never bothered to learn more. EDIT: also why is `ps` default output so useless? With no arguments it only prints a couple processes and that's it. I have no idea what it's supposed to show me. Talk about bad UX.

In case you're curious, the differences basically stem from BSD and Solaris/POSIX having different command syntaxes, and GNU/Linux's ps command trying to implement both. `ps -ef` is the Solaris syntax, while `ps aux` is from BSD.

Post by imwillofficial » Sat, May 07, 2022, 4:13 PM UTC

Tijdreiziger wrote: post #79

bfrankline wrote: post #74

I was at Bell during the options “debate.” I think something that this otherwise wonderful article misses is that some believed that commands were never intended to be the only way to use the system as the shell was intended to be just one of the many user interfaces that Research Unix would provide. From that perspective, it was entirely reasonable to believe that if a command was so complex that it needed options t…

Interesting, any chance you could expand on these 'other user interfaces'? I'm not really familiar with Unix itself, but I've always considered Linux a shell-first OS (as opposed to Windows (NT), which I consider a GUI-first OS).

Post by pjmlp » Sat, May 07, 2022, 4:29 PM UTC

tambourine_man wrote: post #95

If Apple made the transition to OS X in a position of strength, like the one it enjoys today, I think it may had imposed a pattern and rewritten tar, ps, dd, etc. However, the way history has unfolded, I think we’re stuck with this mess for good.