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gnulib-tool.py argument parsing
From: |
Bruno Haible |
Subject: |
gnulib-tool.py argument parsing |
Date: |
Fri, 08 Sep 2017 23:44:41 +0200 |
User-agent: |
KMail/5.1.3 (Linux/4.4.0-93-generic; KDE/5.18.0; x86_64; ; ) |
Hi Dmitry,
I'm banging my head against this:
$ ./gnulib-tool.py --test dirent
<works, creates a temporary directory>
$ ./gnulib-tool.py --test --destdir=../testdir-dirent dirent
usage: gnulib-tool.py --help
./gnulib-tool.py: error: unrecognized arguments: dirent
The argument parsing conventions for POSIX/GNU programs distinguish
* option with 0 or 1 arguments,
* non-option arguments.
In strict POSIX and in gnulib-tool, the non-option arguments come last,
that is, the user is not allowed to write
$ ./gnulib-tool.py dirent --test --destdir=../testdir-dirent
or
$ ./gnulib-tool.py --test dirent --destdir=../testdir-dirent
I'm fine with argument reordering, that is, to *allow* different ways
of specifying the arguments. But gnulib-tool.py is currently *forcing*
a specific argument order which is
1. invalid for gnulib-tool
2. not according to strict POSIX.
Namely, it *forces* the syntax
$ ./gnulib-tool.py --test dirent --destdir=../testdir-dirent
or
$ ./gnulib-tool.py --destdir=../testdir-dirent --test dirent
This "unrecognized arguments" error is explained in
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12818146/
So, I think the fix will be to
1) replace the line
cmdargs = parser.parse_args()
with
cmdargs, nonoption_args = parser.parse_known_args()
2) Revisit all uses of nargs='+' and nargs='*'.
Bruno
- gnulib-tool.py argument parsing,
Bruno Haible <=