On Thu, 08 Aug 2013 17:00:08 +0200, Stephan Beal <sgb...@googlemail.com>
wrote:
On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 2:32 PM, Stestagg <stest...@gmail.com> wrote:
I would agree here, it's not at all clear. Even when you know there is
a
--user option, then the fossil output isn't clear:
In Fossil's defense: i've been using Fossil almost daily since Christmas
2007 and haven't every used --user.
there was no attack so there need not be any defense ;-)
steves@sapphire ~> f --user foo
fossil: fossil: unknown command: --user
fossil: use "help" for more information
IIRC, only commands which use user details (e.g. a commit or tag)
allow/user a user override option. Most locally-run commands don't care
who
you are.
# So the first argument must be the command?
steves@sapphire ~> f --user foo ls
fossil: current directory is not within an open checkout
Unfortunately, that depends on the exact command :/. Side effects of the
argument resolution process change (potentially) in what order some code
must be run. i don't recall off-hand whether the top-level command
dispatcher skips over --flags, but i don't see how it could because it
cannot generically know if the token after a -flag is the value for the
flag or if it is a command (unless it looks up the argument in its
command
table).
i'm not in any way discounting your arguments that the help could be
clearer/more intuitive in places, but some of the current behaviours are
side effects of old design decisions which cannot simply be swapped out.
Feel free to propose new/improved help texts :).
well that's sort of difficult for the average user I'd say since he does
not _know_
what the parser is doing and what the set of valid calls to fossil looks
like. I cannot be sure,
for instance that there are no further undocumented `--word' options
beside `--user' ...
what about extending the output of `fossil help' by giving the most
general syntax like
fossil ?fossil_option(s)? COMMAND ?command_option(s)?
(or whatever is correct) and listing the `fossil_options' here together
with the list
of valid commands with which they can be combined? if it only relates to
`--user' this should be more or less easy
for the people in the know (not me...).
but more formally, it looks to me that it would be better to eliminate
`fossil_options' altogether and add them as command_options
to the respective command(s). that would make for a clearer and less
unusual syntax overall. would that be difficult?
j.
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