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GNU offers guidance[1] to output --help to stdout, but it's not against the law to do it your way. 1: https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/_002d_002dhe
by ryandrake 6mo ago
GNU offers guidance[1] to output --help to stdout, but it's not against the law to do it your way.
1: https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/_002d_002dhelp.html https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/_002d_002dhelp....
- anyfoo 6mo agoI guess this is a point where I disagree with GNU. Then again, the reasons why I disagree are subtle enough that I don't care too much... I think this particular thing doesn't matter very much in practice, so go do your thing GNU...
- ryandrake 6mo agoOut of the problems we all agonize over, this is probably a 1 out of 10!
- dylan604 6mo agoI can see both sides. As someone automating, I could see getting the malformed command -h result to stderr. I can also see that sending -h to stdout would be expected as that is the legit out as requested by the user. At the least, if -h is sent to stdout for a malformed command then by gawd it better be a nonzero exit. With that, I think (and boy did it hurt) that it's an okay rule to break