command line options

[Matthias Andree]

David Relson <relson at osagesoftware.com> writes:

> Matthias,
>
> Your addition of the "-q" flag to quell loading of the config file has
> prompted some thought on my part.  Many programs allow specification of
> the config file name on the command line.  I think that might be useful
> for use to have, perhaps using "-c config_file_name" to name the file.
> To indicate no_config_file, I think we could use "-c -" (where "-" is a
> special name) or use "-C".  Using "-c -" gives special meaning to "-",
> while "-C" uses an additional option letter.

I find special "magic" file names or whatever annyoing, and difficult to
support, because you end up explaining a lot of special cases to the
user.

I would certainly agree if -c file means: read configuration file "file"
instead, but let's not do any magic, particularly, the ~ expansion logic
may come out very bad at that place. I understand it may be useful in a
system-wide configuration in /etc/, but that should be the only place
where we do that. All other cases of tilde expansion are handled by the
shell.

> We could also use "-f" as the option, but I want to save that for a
> "force" option.  For example, we have threshold values that are tested
> before printing bogofilter's statistics.  When testing, I often want to
> see the statistics, without regard to the spamicity.  Using "-f" to
> force printing is useful for that.

-q for quick or quell-config is fine, but -C would also be fine with
me. If you change it from -q to -C, make sure you track the change in
the tests/t.* scripts where used.

-- 
Matthias Andree