Hello.
Just a though... I was writing a simple awk(1) script and looked
at the options supported by this utility in the hope to make the code
cleaner. It seems that there is a big difference between the synopsis
in the manual page:
awk [-safe] [-V] [-d[n]] [-F fs] [-v var=value] [prog | -f progfile]
file ...
nawk ...
and the synopsis returned by the usage message in awk(1):
$ awk
usage: awk [-F fs] [-v var=value] [-safe] [-mr n] [-mf n] [prog | -f
progfile] file ...
In fact, the awk(1)'s program usage shows some options that are currently
not supported by awk itself (i.e., -mr and -mf). It is clear when looking
at the source code of awk:
http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/awk/main.c?rev=1.13&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup
These options are not described in the manual page for this command
either. I would suggest a synchronization between the usage message
in the binary and the, more updated, message in the manual page.
As a second change, I would suggest changing the usage message
in the binary to fit on a standard 80 columns display. In short,
I propose:
- synchronizing the usage message returned by awk(1) and the
synopsis in the manual page.
- splitting the usage message in two lines to fit on standard
displays.
- put the options that do not require arguments before the
options that require arguments.
- optionally, remove the code that announces that -mr and -mf
are obsolete options and, as a consequence, ignored. The
standard message returned by awk(1) for non-existent options
provides ALL information required. For example:
$ awk -g
awk: unknown option -g ignored
awk: no program given
From this message it is clear that "-g" is ignored because it
is an unknown option.
Are these changes acceptable for OpenBSD?
If these changes are good, should I submit the patch directly to
Brian Kernighan or put it here?
The patch seems very easy to write, but will be different for the
source code in OpenBSD (the operating system has awk version 20041222)
and the source code currently available at Bell Labs (from april 24,
2005). Of course, I can write both.
Cheers,
Igor.
