Re: Comments wanted on an idea of changing the binutils version handling

[Christian Jönsson <c dot christian dot joensson at telia dot com>]

On Thu, Mar 07, 2002 at 09:25:18AM -0800, Joe Buck wrote:
> > For the main [binutils] branch, every utility responds to --version like this
> > 
> > objdump (GNU binutils) 2.12.90 20020307 (experimental)
> > Copyright 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
> > This program is free software; you may redistribute it under the terms of
> > the GNU General Public License.  This program has absolutely no warranty.
> 
> Why are you printing the copyright?  This is inconsistent with other GNU
> tools, which just print a short one line string.  Because the string is
> one line it's easy to use in shell substitutions.

Well, perhaps it is inconsistent, but looking at the GNU Coding
Standards, Last updated February 23, 2002, we can read this:

``All programs should support two standard options: `--version' and
`--help'.

`--version'
     This option should direct the program to print information about
     its name, version, origin and legal status, all on standard
     output, and then exit successfully.  Other options and arguments
     should be ignored once this is seen, and the program should not
     perform its normal function.

     The first line is meant to be easy for a program to parse; the
     version number proper starts after the last space.  In addition,
     it contains the canonical name for this program, in this format:

          GNU Emacs 19.30

     The program's name should be a constant string; _don't_ compute it
     from `argv[0]'.  The idea is to state the standard or canonical
     name for the program, not its file name.  There are other ways to
     find out the precise file name where a command is found in `PATH'.

     If the program is a subsidiary part of a larger package, mention
     the package name in parentheses, like this:

          emacsserver (GNU Emacs) 19.30

     If the package has a version number which is different from this
     program's version number, you can mention the package version
     number just before the close-parenthesis.

     If you *need* to mention the version numbers of libraries which
     are distributed separately from the package which contains this
     program, you can do so by printing an additional line of version
     info for each library you want to mention.  Use the same format
     for these lines as for the first line.

     Please do not mention all of the libraries that the program uses
     "just for completeness"--that would produce a lot of unhelpful
     clutter.  Please mention library version numbers only if you find
     in practice that they are very important to you in debugging.

     The following line, after the version number line or lines, should
     be a copyright notice.  If more than one copyright notice is
     called for, put each on a separate line.

     Next should follow a brief statement that the program is free
     software, and that users are free to copy and change it on certain
     conditions.  If the program is covered by the GNU GPL, say so
     here.  Also mention that there is no warranty, to the extent
     permitted by law.

     It is ok to finish the output with a list of the major authors of
     the program, as a way of giving credit.

     Here's an example of output that follows these rules:

          GNU Emacs 19.34.5
          Copyright (C) 1996 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
          GNU Emacs comes with NO WARRANTY,
          to the extent permitted by law.
          You may redistribute copies of GNU Emacs
          under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
          For more information about these matters,
          see the files named COPYING.

     You should adapt this to your program, of course, filling in the
     proper year, copyright holder, name of program, and the references
     to distribution terms, and changing the rest of the wording as
     necessary.

     This copyright notice only needs to mention the most recent year in
     which changes were made--there's no need to list the years for
     previous versions' changes.  You don't have to mention the name of
     the program in these notices, if that is inconvenient, since it
     appeared in the first line.

     Translations of the above lines must preserve the validity of the
     copyright notices (*note Internationalization::).  If the
     translation's character set supports it, the `(C)' should be
     replaced with the copyright symbol, as follows:

     (the official copyright symbol, which is the letter C in a circle);

     Write the word "Copyright" exactly like that, in English.  Do not
     translate it into another language.  International treaties
     recognize the English word "Copyright"; translations into other
     languages do not have legal significance.

`--help'
     This option should output brief documentation for how to invoke the
     program, on standard output, then exit successfully.  Other
     options and arguments should be ignored once this is seen, and the
     program should not perform its normal function.

     Near the end of the `--help' option's output there should be a line
     that says where to mail bug reports.  It should have this format:

          Report bugs to MAILING-ADDRESS.''

That's why. But, I'm just listening to your comments and arguments.



Thanks,

/ChJ