5 ms·

Clang, swiftc, etc. would like a word with you... :) (It bothers me too.)

sp332 4y ago
-fpic is a single letter option, -f, followed by the parameter pic. Clang still uses two hyphens for long options including --help.
- lifthrasiir 4y ago
  There are tons of options that start with -f and can't be decomposed in that way [1, e.g. -framework]. They are essentially atomic options with a loose naming convention. [1] https://clang.llvm.org/docs/ClangCommandLineReference.html https://clang.llvm.org/docs/ClangCommandLineReference.html
  - IgorPartola 4y ago
    Correct. You cannot use “ramework” as an argument to “-f”. Instead use two dashes and it is unambiguous.
    - lifthrasiir 4y ago
      It took me some thoughts to realize what you wanted to say, and you are incorrect: there is no single option `-f` in cc options! `-f` is just a common prefix of hundreds of independent options, like `-fsanitize=...` (which can't be used as `-f sanitize=...`). As I've iterated before, those prefixes mostly represent broad categories of options and not hard and fast rules: `-g` for debug, `-i` for directories, `-m` for target architectures, `-W` for warnings, and `-f` for virtually everything else.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- hsbauauvhabzb 4y ago
  But maybe we should talk about the lack of space character between the flag and the argument…
  - account42 4y ago
    That's just how short options with arguments work in getopt POSIX land: '-oARG' is equivalent to '-o' 'ARG' just like '--option=ARG' is equivalent to '--option' 'ARG' (for GNU long options). This means that you cannot chain any other short options after one with an (optional) argument but otherwise does not cause any problems.
    - hsbauauvhabzb 4y ago
      Yes not every Linux/unix arg parser conforms to posix, some require a space, others do not.
smaudet 4y ago
saneclang, saneswift, (sanegcc?) cli wrappers around clang, swift which fix the insane porcelains of those toolchains. We built a million GUIs for these, why did we never build CLIs for bad CLIs?
account42 4y ago
To be fair to Clang, the -arguments are inherited from GCC for compatibility (which perhaps inherited them from other CCs) and then extended from there in the most consistent way possible. Similarily, clang-cl supports cl.exe-style flags for drop-in compatibility.

-fpic is a single letter option, -f, followed by the parameter pic. Clang still uses two hyphens for long options including --help.

lifthrasiir 4y ago
There are tons of options that start with -f and can't be decomposed in that way [1, e.g. -framework]. They are essentially atomic options with a loose naming convention. [1] https://clang.llvm.org/docs/ClangCommandLineReference.html https://clang.llvm.org/docs/ClangCommandLineReference.html
- IgorPartola 4y ago
  Correct. You cannot use “ramework” as an argument to “-f”. Instead use two dashes and it is unambiguous.
  - lifthrasiir 4y ago
    It took me some thoughts to realize what you wanted to say, and you are incorrect: there is no single option `-f` in cc options! `-f` is just a common prefix of hundreds of independent options, like `-fsanitize=...` (which can't be used as `-f sanitize=...`). As I've iterated before, those prefixes mostly represent broad categories of options and not hard and fast rules: `-g` for debug, `-i` for directories, `-m` for target architectures, `-W` for warnings, and `-f` for virtually everything else.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
hsbauauvhabzb 4y ago
But maybe we should talk about the lack of space character between the flag and the argument…
- account42 4y ago
  That's just how short options with arguments work in getopt POSIX land: '-oARG' is equivalent to '-o' 'ARG' just like '--option=ARG' is equivalent to '--option' 'ARG' (for GNU long options). This means that you cannot chain any other short options after one with an (optional) argument but otherwise does not cause any problems.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 4y ago
    Yes not every Linux/unix arg parser conforms to posix, some require a space, others do not.

smaudet 4y ago

saneclang, saneswift, (sanegcc?) cli wrappers around clang, swift which fix the insane porcelains of those toolchains. We built a million GUIs for these, why did we never build CLIs for bad CLIs?

account42 4y ago

To be fair to Clang, the -arguments are inherited from GCC for compatibility (which perhaps inherited them from other CCs) and then extended from there in the most consistent way possible. Similarily, clang-cl supports cl.exe-style flags for drop-in compatibility.