Re: [PATCH v3 1/5] parse-options: Allow PARSE_OPT_NOARG in integer arguments

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Aug 21, 2010, 03:39 UTC
Message-ID: <20100821033916.GA2206@burratino>
In-Reply-To: <20100820200148.GE6211@kytes>

Hi Ram,

[rearranged for convenience] Ramkumar Ramachandra wrote:

> Let's say I want to have an option that takes an
> integer argument, say `foo`. To set it to the integer argument 42, I
> can say `--foo=42`. To set it to its default value, I could earlier
> say `--foo=`. With this patch I can simply say `--foo`. Makes sense?

I think you want OPTARG ("optional argument").

What your patch would allow is using OPTION_INTEGER for boolean options, where people use OPT_SET_INT now. Maybe that would be a good cleanup, but I am not convinced it is worth the churn.

> Junio C Hamano writes:

>> Doesn't NOARG mean "Do not take an argument, if you give me an argument
>> that is an error"?
>
> Oh, does it mean that?

Yes.

-- 8< --
Subject: parse-options: clarify PARSE_OPT_NOARG description

Here "takes no argument" means "does not take an argument". The latter phrasing might make it clearer that PARSE_OPT_NOARG does not make an option with an argument that can optionally be left off.

Noticed-by: Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
---

diff --git a/parse-options.h b/parse-options.h
index 7435cdb..d982f0f 100644
--- a/parse-options.h
+++ b/parse-options.h
@@ -69,7 +69,7 @@ typedef int parse_opt_cb(const struct option *, const char *arg, int unset);
  * `flags`::
  *   mask of parse_opt_option_flags.
  *   PARSE_OPT_OPTARG: says that the argument is optional (not for BOOLEANs)
- *   PARSE_OPT_NOARG: says that this option takes no argument
+ *   PARSE_OPT_NOARG: says that this option does not take an argument
  *   PARSE_OPT_NONEG: says that this option cannot be negated
  *   PARSE_OPT_HIDDEN: this option is skipped in the default usage, and
  *                     shown only in the full usage.