Subject: Re: bug#10253: mention +FORMAT in ls time style reminder help blurb

From: Jim Meyering <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2011 11:11:53 +0100

Paul Eggert wrote:
> I like the change, thanks.  A couple of nits:
>
> On 12/11/11 03:07, Jim Meyering wrote:
>> +              fprintf (stderr,
>> +                       _("  - `+' followed by a date format string\n"));
>
> I suggest supplying an example and quoting "date" so that it's clearer
> that it's talking about the `date' command.  Something like this, perhaps?
>
>    _("  - +FORMAT (e.g., +%H:%M) for a `date'-style format\n")

Thanks.  That is better.

>> +                fprintf (stderr, "  - `[posix-]%s'\n", *p++);
>
> I suggest removing the ` and ' since they are locale-dependent
> and aren't needed here (plus, that works better with the above
> suggestion....).

Good point.  Besides, I'd say that using quotes around syntax including
the likes of `[posix-]...' is misleading in that it might encourage
someone to use the []'s.

>> +              fprintf (stderr, _("Valid arguments are:"));
>
> Isn't the usual style to use fputs when there's no directive
> in the format?  There's one other example of this.

Yes, that is my preference, too.
Thanks for pointing it out.

I copied both that format-less fprintf and the `' mark-up from argmatch.c.
The fix there was easy: just use quote (...), since argmatch.c already
includes quote.h, so I've just fixed that in gnulib.

Here's a new version of the patch:
[slightly risky for translators and fuzzy string matchers:
 now there are two very similar strings:

  "Valid arguments are:\n" (here in ls.c)
  "Valid arguments are:"   (in gnulib's argmatch.c)

 It'd be easy rework argmatch.c to include the \n.
 ]

Now it prints this:

    $ src/ls -l --time-style=x
    src/ls: invalid argument `x' for `time style'
    Valid arguments are:
      - [posix-]full-iso
      - [posix-]long-iso
      - [posix-]iso
      - [posix-]locale
      - +FORMAT (e.g., +%H:%M) for a `date'-style format
    Try `src/ls --help' for more information.

>From 79a14f0481df2bd45a20f92ce4c156f42fdae660 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Jim Meyering <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2011 11:59:31 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] ls: give a more useful diagnostic for a bogus --time-style
 arg

* src/ls.c (decode_switches): Replace our use of XARGMATCH
with open-coded version so that we can give a better diagnostic.
Reported by Dan Jacobson in http://bugs.gnu.org/10253
with suggestions from Eric Blake and Paul Eggert.
---
 src/ls.c |   72 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------------------
 1 files changed, 48 insertions(+), 24 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/ls.c b/src/ls.c
index 0d64bab..672237a 100644
--- a/src/ls.c
+++ b/src/ls.c
@@ -2039,33 +2039,57 @@ decode_switches (int argc, char **argv)
           long_time_format[1] = p1;
         }
       else
-        switch (XARGMATCH ("time style", style,
-                           time_style_args,
-                           time_style_types))
-          {
-          case full_iso_time_style:
-            long_time_format[0] = long_time_format[1] =
-              "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%N %z";
-            break;
+        {
+          ptrdiff_t res = argmatch (style, time_style_args,
+                                    (char const *) time_style_types,
+                                    sizeof (*time_style_types));
+          if (res < 0)
+            {
+              /* This whole block used to be a simple use of XARGMATCH.
+                 but that didn't print the "posix-"-prefixed variants or
+                 the "+"-prefixed format string option upon failure.  */
+              argmatch_invalid ("time style", style, res);
+
+              /* The following is a manual expansion of argmatch_valid,
+                 but with the added "+ ..." description and the [posix-]
+                 prefixes prepended.  Note that this simplification works
+                 only because all four existing time_style_types values
+                 are distinct.  */
+              fputs (_("Valid arguments are:\n"), stderr);
+              char const *const *p = time_style_args;
+              while (*p)
+                fprintf (stderr, "  - [posix-]%s\n", *p++);
+              fputs (_("  - +FORMAT (e.g., +%H:%M) for a `date'-style"
+                       " format\n"), stderr);
+              usage (LS_FAILURE);
+            }
+          switch (res)
+            {
+            case full_iso_time_style:
+              long_time_format[0] = long_time_format[1] =
+                "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S.%N %z";
+              break;

-          case long_iso_time_style:
-            long_time_format[0] = long_time_format[1] = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M";
-            break;
+            case long_iso_time_style:
+              long_time_format[0] = long_time_format[1] = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M";
+              break;

-          case iso_time_style:
-            long_time_format[0] = "%Y-%m-%d ";
-            long_time_format[1] = "%m-%d %H:%M";
-            break;
+            case iso_time_style:
+              long_time_format[0] = "%Y-%m-%d ";
+              long_time_format[1] = "%m-%d %H:%M";
+              break;
+
+            case locale_time_style:
+              if (hard_locale (LC_TIME))
+                {
+                  int i;
+                  for (i = 0; i < 2; i++)
+                    long_time_format[i] =
+                      dcgettext (NULL, long_time_format[i], LC_TIME);
+                }
+            }
+        }

-          case locale_time_style:
-            if (hard_locale (LC_TIME))
-              {
-                int i;
-                for (i = 0; i < 2; i++)
-                  long_time_format[i] =
-                    dcgettext (NULL, long_time_format[i], LC_TIME);
-              }
-          }
       /* Note we leave %5b etc. alone so user widths/flags are honored.  */
       if (strstr (long_time_format[0], "%b")
           || strstr (long_time_format[1], "%b"))
--
1.7.8.163.g9859a