Re: [PATCH] Command line parsing of ls with genparse

[Michael Geng]

On Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 09:08:51PM -0600, Eric Blake wrote:
> According to Michael Geng on 8/28/2007 12:33 PM:
> > 
> > In the present version of genparse new strings are always printed
> > in new lines. For example (also from the ls commmand):
> > 
> > d / directory                       flag    "list directory entries instead 
> > of contents,"
> >                                     "  and do not dereference symbolic 
> > links"
> 
> Why not make genparse a bit smarter, and let the user supply free-form
> text as the option description.  Genparse should then wrap it to fit an
> 80-column screen before generating the resulting usage() in the .c file.
> Then the above example would simply be:
> 
> d / directory flag \
> "list directory entries instead of contents, and do not dereference
> symbolic links"
> 
> with the __GNU_GLOSSARY__(29) being the formatting hint of where the
> auto-wrapping should occur in the output English text.

I think that's a good idea. How about adding a --linebreak[=width] command 
line switch to genparse which enables breaking lines on the help screen 
automatically to the specified width or 80 columns if --linebreak is given
without argument?

Michael