[ ruby-Bugs-8384 ] Discrepancy between GetoptLong.new and documentation

Bugs item #8384, was opened at 2007-02-02 10:06
You can respond by visiting: 
http://rubyforge.org/tracker/?func=detail&atid=1698&aid=8384&group_id=426

Category: Standard Library
Group: 1.8.5
Status: Open
Resolution: None
Priority: 3
Submitted By: Roel Harbers (rharbers)
Assigned to: Nobody (None)
Summary: Discrepancy between GetoptLong.new and documentation

Initial Comment:
According to the documentation for getoptlong.rb, the GetoptLong.new method requires an array of arrays to be passed:

  # The options to support are passed to new() as an array of arrays.
  # Each sub-array contains any number of String option names which carry 
  # the same meaning, and one of the following flags:

However, this code fails:
  require 'getoptlong'
  options = GetoptLong.new(
    [
      ['-a', GetoptLong::NO_ARGUMENT],
      ['-b', GetoptLong::NO_ARGUMENT],
    ]
  )

This works:
  require 'getoptlong'
  options = GetoptLong.new(
    ['-a', GetoptLong::NO_ARGUMENT],
    ['-b', GetoptLong::NO_ARGUMENT]
  )

Either the documentation could be fixed, or the call could accept an array of arrays. Personally, I prefer the latter, since it allows something like this:

  options = GetoptLong.new(
    [
      ['-a', GetoptLong::NO_ARGUMENT],
      ['-b', GetoptLong::NO_ARGUMENT],
#     ['--debug', GetoptLong::NO_ARGUMENT],
    ]
  )

which the other form does not allow without removing the comma from the -b line too.

I made a patch againt 1.8.5 that lets set_options (and by extension initialize) accept both forms.

What do you people think?

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You can respond by visiting: 
http://rubyforge.org/tracker/?func=detail&atid=1698&aid=8384&group_id=426