non coherent options, switches and descriptions

[jg <jg at tk dot hm dot rd dot sanyo dot co dot jp>]

Hello

I am not sure if anyone else has noticed these subtle differences 
inbetween the various GNU commands, I think some improvements can be 
made in the following ones I have noticed so far while writing this email.

Binutils and GCC with no args

$ objcopy
Usage: objcopy <switches> in-file [out-file]
....

$ objdump
Usage: objdump OPTION... FILE...
....

$gcc
gcc: No input files

$ gcc --help
Usage: gcc [options] file...

Clearly i understand the different ways of writing options, but I think 
it would be better to standardise the applications, if I was a newbie 
this could be confusing. providing the "options" screen when no args are 
passed is good design IMO

This is another example of the different args used, is there a standard 
set of these?

$ gcc -v
Reading specs from /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i586-mandrake-linux-gnu/2.96/specs
gcc version 2.96 20000731 (Mandrake Linux 8.1 2.96-0.62mdk)

$ objdump -v
objdump: invalid option -- v

$ objdump -V
GNU objdump 2.11.90.0.8

$ gcc -V
gcc: argument to `-V' is missing

To summerise, different "options" do different things, -v on objdump 
could be set to the same as GCC, however gcc already has a use for -V. 
 objdump and objcopy are in the same binutils package, yet objdump uses 
"OPTION" and the latter uses "<switches>" this inconsitency should be a 
quick patch to change i think..

Your thoughts please.

JG

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