Subject: bug#17185: closed (Re: [bug-diffutils] bug#17185: diff --help doesn't mention short forms of some options)

From: [email-masked] (GNU bug Tracking System)
Date: Sun, 01 May 2016 03:04:02 +0000

Your bug report

#17185: diff --help doesn't mention short forms of some options

which was filed against the diffutils package, has been closed.

The explanation is attached below, along with your original report.
If you require more details, please reply to [email-masked].

-- 
17185: http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=17185
GNU Bug Tracking System
Contact [email-masked] with problems

Subject: Re: [bug-diffutils] bug#17185: diff --help doesn't mention short forms of some options
From: Jim Meyering <[email-masked]>
To: Jay Foad <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2016 20:03:13 -0700
List-Id: <debbugs-submit.debbugs.gnu.org>

tags 17185 notabug
done

On Fri, Apr 4, 2014 at 4:05 AM, Jay Foad <[email-masked]> wrote:
> $ diff --help | egrep "label|unidirectional|speed"
>       --label LABEL             use LABEL instead of file name
>       --unidirectional-new-file   treat absent first files as empty
>       --speed-large-files  assume large files and many scattered small changes
>
> It would be nice if the help text told me that these options have
> short forms -L, -P and -H respectively.

Thanks for noticing, but I have deliberately undocumented those
short-named options because they are slated to be used differently in
a future release: for link-traversal control, as is already done in
many other tools, e.g., find, cp, du:

$ cp --help|grep -e '-[LHP]'
  -H                           follow command-line symbolic links in SOURCE
  -L, --dereference            always follow symbolic links in SOURCE
  -P, --no-dereference         never follow symbolic links in SOURCE

Subject: diff --help doesn't mention short forms of some options
From: Jay Foad <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2014 12:05:21 +0100
List-Id: <debbugs-submit.debbugs.gnu.org>

$ diff --help | egrep "label|unidirectional|speed"
      --label LABEL             use LABEL instead of file name
      --unidirectional-new-file   treat absent first files as empty
      --speed-large-files  assume large files and many scattered small changes

It would be nice if the help text told me that these options have
short forms -L, -P and -H respectively.

Thanks,
Jay.