Re: "CHAR_MIN - X" in help/version flags

[Shawn Wagner]

I had a hunch it must be something like that, but was afraid it was a misunderstanding. Thanks for the clear explanation! It sounds like we should be okay to go ahead with implementing an awk-like -h/-V.

Unless someone has a better idea in mind for those options, yeah, it's okay. 

On Fri, Aug 5, 2022 at 7:36 PM Tim Rice <trice@posteo.net> wrote:

Hey Shawn,

>They're not listed in the short options passed to getopt_long(), hence the
>error. But ~ isn't actually what CHAR_MIN - 2 is; it's just what you get
>when you convert an int outside of the range of chars to a char. Those
>values are ints that can't be represented in a char type, meaning they
>can't go in the short options so they're ideal for a long-only option to
>avoid any chance of future conflicts - only so many single character
>options available to use. If you want to make -h a synonym for --help,
>you'd have to add it to the short options and change the --help entry in
>the long options to return 'h', and adjust the argument-handling switch too.

I had a hunch it must be something like that, but was afraid it was a misunderstanding. Thanks for the clear explanation! It sounds like we should be okay to go ahead with implementing an awk-like -h/-V.

~ Tim