4 ms·

The list is probably ignoring man foo apropos foo Info foo ;-) Fun aside, I think -h/--help is nowadays the most widespread and accepted version

by ktpsns 5y ago

The list is probably ignoring man foo apropos foo Info foo ;-) Fun aside, I think -h/--help is nowadays the most widespread and accepted version in Linux/Unix-Land. A good CLI argument parser accepts both variants.

anjbe 5y ago
I always default to “man foo”, because of the occasional tool that when presented with -h or --help creates a file with that name; even if there’s no manpage, “man foo” will never have any undesired side effects. Nearly every tool does have a manpage (even a basic one) thanks to Debian’s manpage policy: “Each program, utility, and function should have an associated manual page included in the same package or a dependency.… If no manual page is available, this is considered as a bug and should be reported to the Debian Bug Tracking System.” The rare times I encounter a command‐line tool that has no manpage, I’ll sometimes write one and contribute it upstream. Of course some programs have a useless manpage that points to info. Thankfully that is pretty much limited to GNU tools which I’m lucky enough to not have to use very often.
- gifnamething 5y ago
  There is the occasion where the manpage is useless compared to the help or the website docs. For example, the ironic 'man doxygen'.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 5y ago
    Or the man page for OpenSSL's config, which actually has many of the options in the man pages for `req`, `x509`, and `ca`.
- twic 5y ago
  Hey, at least this doesn't create a file: shutdown -h
pcthrowaway 5y ago
> Fun aside, I think -h/--help is nowadays the most widespread and accepted version in Linux/Unix-Land The most notable exception (to me) among modern tooling is the `aws` cli, which parses help as a subcommand. And if you try `--help` it just gives you an `Unkown option` response. I'm mildly amused by the need to reserve a little bit of brain-space for the ways to ask cli tooling for help
- ktpsns 5y ago
  It would be easy for the authors of this tool to fix this behaviour. Checkout `git --help` vs `git help`, both versions work. That's just being nice to the user.

by ktpsns 5y ago

anjbe 5y ago

I always default to “man foo”, because of the occasional tool that when presented with -h or --help creates a file with that name; even if there’s no manpage, “man foo” will never have any undesired side effects. Nearly every tool does have a manpage (even a basic one) thanks to Debian’s manpage policy: “Each program, utility, and function should have an associated manual page included in the same package or a dependency.… If no manual page is available, this is considered as a bug and should be reported to the Debian Bug Tracking System.” The rare times I encounter a command‐line tool that has no manpage, I’ll sometimes write one and contribute it upstream. Of course some programs have a useless manpage that points to info. Thankfully that is pretty much limited to GNU tools which I’m lucky enough to not have to use very often.

gifnamething 5y ago
There is the occasion where the manpage is useless compared to the help or the website docs. For example, the ironic 'man doxygen'.
- SAI_Peregrinus 5y ago
  Or the man page for OpenSSL's config, which actually has many of the options in the man pages for `req`, `x509`, and `ca`.
twic 5y ago
Hey, at least this doesn't create a file: shutdown -h

pcthrowaway 5y ago

> Fun aside, I think -h/--help is nowadays the most widespread and accepted version in Linux/Unix-Land The most notable exception (to me) among modern tooling is the `aws` cli, which parses help as a subcommand. And if you try `--help` it just gives you an `Unkown option` response. I'm mildly amused by the need to reserve a little bit of brain-space for the ways to ask cli tooling for help

ktpsns 5y ago
It would be easy for the authors of this tool to fix this behaviour. Checkout `git --help` vs `git help`, both versions work. That's just being nice to the user.