tar problems

[Mike McCarty]

Les Mikesell wrote:

[snip about tar options]

>Does it make a difference if you add the usual leading single - to
>the single-letter option bundle?  Maintaining backwards compatibility
>to the ancient version of tar that allowed (or perhaps required) you
>to omit it has always required some strange parsing of the command
>line.  If you include it, can you now do the usual GNUish mix of
>single letter and long options?  I guess I would never have tried
>putting the target anywhere but as the last thing in the command
>anyway - I'm surprised that ever worked.
>
>  
>
Many of the FSF programs use a common GETOPT routine which does
all the "-" and "--" parsing common stuff. This routine skips
around in the argument list looking for stuff, and so even
when programs don't document the ability to intermix arguments
and options, they often support it anyway. It's not that the
author decided to support that, it's just that a routine already
exists which does it.

Mike

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