Re: [PATCH] md5sum+sha*sum: add option --quiet/-q to suppress OK messages

[Jim Meyering]

Erik Auerswald <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 06:05:48PM +0200, Jim Meyering wrote:
>> Erik Auerswald <address@hidden> wrote:
>> > IMHO md5sum and sha*sum are too verbose by default, especially when
>> > checking a large collection of files with only a few failing validation.
>> > Therefore I'd like to see an option added to suppress just the output
>> > for successfully verified files.
>> >
>> > The attached patch does that by adding the option --quiet/-q, including
>> > documentation and a testcase.
>>
>> Thank you for a fine patch.
>> That looks very good.
>> The only suggestion I can make so far is to omit the short-named "-q" option.
>> The "--q" abbreviation of --quiet is only one byte longer.
>
> The short "-q" is commonly used for "--quiet", I would expect it's
> existence for every progam having short option names and this kind of
> functionality.
>
> If you insist on omitting it I'll remove it from the next version of the
> patch, but I'd prefer it with "-q".

Sorry, but I do insist.

It's not an arbitrary decision, and I'm not picking on you in particular.
Everyone who proposes to add short-named options to existing programs
gets the same answer.

This is a hard and fast policy in coreutils:
No new short options, unless you somehow manage
to prove that it won't ever conflict with some
other vendor's -q option.  And even then, I'd
probably reject it, unless it's somehow standardized.