Re: Bug#295328: general: Help messages to stderr should be banned
On Mon, Feb 14, 2005 at 11:06:30PM -0500, Justin Pryzby wrote:
[...]
> I occasionally install a program and need to know how to use it as
> quickly as possible; for example, while reading through bug reports.
> So, I run foo --help. Sometimes, the help screen is more than 25
> lines long, and it scrolls on past. So, I run foo --help |less.
> Occasionally, though, foo writes its help output to stderr, and I'm
> left with an empty less buffer. So, I try again: foo --help 2>&1
> |less. This is a pretty obnoxious command to have to type just to
> see what the required commands are, and in what order they are taken
> (and, I guess csh doesn't even allow it).
[...]
Actually, in csh/tcsh it's very un-obnoxious: foo --help |& less
This is one of the things I wish bash supports, so that I can switch
to bash. (I use csh/tcsh as my primary shell.)
FWIW.
T
--
Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore,
if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not
smart enough to debug it. -- Brian W. Kernighan
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