guidelines for command line arguments?

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#2497

From: Michael J Dedina
Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1991 18:33

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I'm writing the command-line invocation user-interace portion of a new OS/2
application (i.e., argument and options processing).  Being somewhat
new to the OS/2 world (and the DOS world for that matter), I would
like to know if there are any standards or conventions for what
invocation lines should look like under OS/2.  For example, when invoking
program "foo", should slashes be used to specify options?:
       foo filename /opt1 /opt2
or should unix-like dashes be used?   Should I allow options to be intermixed
with arguments?
       foo /opt1 filename1 /opt2 filename2
Should blanks be allowed liberally?
       foo filename  /  opt1 /opt2/opt3
How should values for options be specified?
       foo filename /opt1(opt1value)
How about subobtions?
       foo filename /opt1(/opt1b(opt1bvalue))
Etcetera.

I would like to make the application fit in with the "style" of OS/2 but
its not clear to me that there is a clearly defined style.

-Mike Dedina
dedina@cup.portal.com

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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!fernwood!portal!cup.portal.com!dedina
From: dedina@cup.portal.com (Michael J Dedina)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.programmer
Subject: guidelines for command line arguments?
Message-ID: <40706@cup.portal.com>
Date: 30 Mar 91 18:33:49 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
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