[libvirt] [PATCHv2 11/15] virsh: add option aliases

[Peter Krempa]

On 03/06/2012 01:34 AM, Eric Blake wrote:
> In the past, we have created some virsh options with less-than-stellar
> names.  For back-compat reasons, those names must continue to parse,
> but we don't want to document them in help output.  This introduces
> a new option type, an alias, which points to a canonical option name
> later in the option list.
>
> I'm actually quite impressed that our code has already been factored
> to do all option parsing through common entry points, such that I
> got this added in relatively few lines of code!
>
> * tools/virsh.c (VSH_OT_ALIAS): New option type.
> (opts_echo): Hook up an alias, for easy testing.
> (vshCmddefOptParse, vshCmddefHelp, vshCmddefGetOption): Allow for
> aliases.
> * tests/virshtest.c (mymain): Test new feature.
> ---

Nice way to mask old mistakes and still support them.

I'm wondering if this will not confuse people if their beloved arguments 
disappear suddenly from the docs. Maybe the help command could 
explicitly state aliases that exist for commands to avoid some confusion.

I'm leaning towards an ACK as it's better to encourage to use the fixed 
spelling. Does anyone object?

Peter