Hi Paul, > Valdis wrote: > > Ralph wrote: > > > That quickly bores. -noprint doesn't seem a good fit for a > > > general `please be quiet'. If folder's regaining that > > > functionality then perhaps it's the opportunity to use a more > > > general, positive rather than negative, option? Especially if it > > > has an often unambiguous abbreviation. > > > > -silent? > > i guess i don't think -noprint is so bad. it's pretty much > self-explanatory, and has never worked in the past (so we wouldn't be > breaking anything).
I agree -noprint wouldn't break anything, but, if mh-chart(7) is correct and I've plucked options from it without error, then there's already -noprefer -noprepend -nopreserve so `-nopri' would be needed to be unambiguous if it were to become the common option across nmh commands. That's tedious, and doesn't obviously say `be quiet', ending in an `eye' sound, not an `ee', so the `...nt' would be added anyway. `-silent' is already used by one command, inc(1). `-s' is naturally very common, but `-si' is unique. `-quiet' is also used by one command, burst(1). `-q' isn't unique because of `-query', solely used by repl(1) for "asking", the man page says. POSIX grep(1) has `-q', GNU long form `--quiet'. Searching section 1 of the man pages suggest `quiet' is the common term. Ignoring the loads of uncommon commands that use it, there's still many users: git, gpg, less, passwd, readlink, rsync, script, systemctl, valgrind, wget, and the compressors -- bzip2, gzip, lzop, etc., all have `-q' for quietness. `-s' is used by fewer, the old Bell Labs commands: cmp, ed, make, and tty. I'd prefer `-q'; as a one-letter option in other commands, it's familiar for this meaning. `-si' would be an nmh thing. That would either mean nobbling repl's -query, does anyone use it? :-) Or altering option parsing to allow a precedence, perhaps just for single letters, so a command with `-query' and `-quiet' can declare `-q' means shush. I'm been thinking the option parsing could benefit from `improvement' in this and other ways for a while. -- Cheers, Ralph. https://plus.google.com/+RalphCorderoy -- Nmh-workers https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/nmh-workers