GNU bug report logs - #25670
Feature request: ignore --help in --script mode

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Message #25 received at 25670 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
To: Clément Pit--Claudel <clement.pitclaudel <at> live.com>
Cc: 25670 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#25670: Feature request: ignore --help in --script mode
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 2017 11:59:00 +0200

> From: Clément Pit--Claudel <clement.pitclaudel <at> live.com>
> Date: Thu, 9 Feb 2017 16:00:59 -0500
> 
> Event with --script, Emacs still displays its help when passed --help.  This is confusing for users (they might write emacs --script some-script.el --help expecting to get help on the script, but instead they get Emacs' help), and it force ELisp scripts to use --usage or some other harder-to-guess synonym.
> 
> Could this be changed so that emacs --script a.el --help does not show Emacs' help?

What should be done with --help in that case?

(In general, I'd expect such script not to use --help or --version at
all.)

> More generally, could we guarantee that options that appear *after* "--script" aren't processed by Emacs itself (and instead left to the script)?  Or would that break things?

Which other options should be processed when --script is given?  Are
there any requirements for what command-line-args-left should have
when the script is loaded?

IOW, it is not clear to me what are the expectations in this use case.
Please take a look at how the command-line arguments are processed at
startup, in emacs.c and in startup.el, and make a more detailed
proposal.  Then we could see if it's easy to implement without
potentially breaking anything.

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