Hi Chen, >> One possibility is to stick with the existing long option names, >> but let an argument of the form "K/N" evoke the new semantics: >> >> --bytes=K/N extract the K'th of N portions (byte-oriented) >> --lines=K/N extract the K'th of N portions (line-oriented) >> > While this little split project started from the extract Kth of N syntax, > BSD's -n option is split a file into N equal pieces. Hence we actually > have four syntaxes to cover: division by bytes and division by lines, > into N equal chunks in output files, and extract the Kth of N equal > chunksto stdout.
Sure, but a trivial change in syntax would allow that, too: --bytes=/N split the input into N roughly equal portions (byte-oriented) --lines=/N split the input into N roughly equal portions (line-oriented) then, assuming the BSD option works this way, you could document -n N like this: -n N equivalent to --bytes=/N > Given that, I can't help but feel there should be more similarity > between the two equal chunk options, than an equal chunk option > and a size-in-bytes or size-in-lines option. > > I feel the most elegant way, like i stated earlier, is -nl and -nb. As > Padraig said, it's impossible as one option, but perhaps we can do > something like ls's -lh option, where -h extends -l? Sorry, but we try hard to avoid adding short-named options in general, unless it's for compatibility with existing implementation.
