"Greg A. Woods" <woods@xxxxxxxxxx> writes: > $ ls -? > ls: unknown option -- ? > usage: ls [-AaBbCcdFfghikLlmnopqRrSsTtuWwx1] [file ...] > ... > Most other commands know '-?', and despite > the silliness with GNU Ls, use of '-?' to request summary usage > information is pretty much a de facto standard for unix commands. I think you are showing ignorance here, as -? is *not* even close to standard, nor even widely used practice at all. I somehow doubt your ls would respond to "ls -X" any differently from "ls -?", but is giving the same canned response to any unknown option. The "usage: ls [-AaBbC...] [file...]" indeed is much better than abstract "usage: frotz <options> <args>" that does not list what <options> are, but that is a totally different thing. On that point, I think Peff already made a good suggestion of giving the full help text in such a case. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html