From: Jim Freeze <jim@...>
Date: 2005-06-25T07:46:40+09:00
Subject: Re: [ANN] Application-0.6.0

* Eric Mahurin <eric_mahurin@yahoo.com> [2005-06-25 06:14:49 +0900]:

> The reason I ask for this is that it is sometimes frustrating
> to simply get usage.  It varies from -u, -usage, -h, -help,
> --help, etc.  If an app has required options/args, it usually
> is not a problem, but when nothing is required, it may take a
> while to figure out how the get the usage.  Having a standard
> for these goodies would be a good thing.

CommandLine::Application does the same thing. 
For an application that takes arguments, when it sees
none, it takes that as a que to print the usage.
If it does not expect any arguments, it won't print
the usage and the user has to guess. I don't know
of any way around this.

But, you bring up a good point. Consider a std app:

  % app
   Usage: app [-dhv] file

That's it. That's all you get. What is -h? What is -d? or -v?

I used to print the man page instead of the usage, but that
got long. Now I'm thinking that the usage statement should
be more clear. We need a short description and some kind of
way to at least know how to get more info. Seems like there
should be a way to add the description of selected options
to the usage statement.

What do you think?

-- 
Jim Freeze