Java never supported single letter options, which is why any other meta-character is necessary at all. ls -la == ls -l -a, but then you can't ls -all because i

Java never supported single letter options, which is why any other meta-character is necessary at all. ls -la == ls -l -a, but then you can't ls -all because it's the same, you need --all (or +all). Java supports -cp or -classpath but in both cases the token after the - always identifies a single option, so you don't need the second dash.