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From: "Daniel Sockwell" <daniel@codesections.com>
Message-ID: <748d39f5264bf11111ee06b52ab468f1@codesections.com>
Subject: Re: quick question re: Conventions for Command Line Options
To: "Christopher Wellons" <wellons@nullprogram.com>
Cc: ~skeeto/public-inbox@lists.sr.ht
In-Reply-To: <20210219015056.ykehuy5vdz2ou3hl@nullprogram.com>
References: <20210219015056.ykehuy5vdz2ou3hl@nullprogram.com>
 <7df03fe8f8d0304f0ed2cd95d7a839ae@codesections.com>
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Thanks very much for the helpful and through reply!  This (along with you=
r post) has been very=0Ahelpful in getting my head around all of this, an=
d has definitely impacted the design decisions =0AI'm making as I work to=
 expand the argument parser built in to the Raku standard library.=0A=0A>=
> --input-files *.jpg=0A> =0A> This has no way to indicate where the argu=
ments stop such that option processing can continue, so=0A> this option m=
ust go last. If it must go last, then these are really just positional ar=
guments.=0A> [snip]=0A> Arbitrary argument lists should be positional arg=
uments. If you need multiple such lists (e.g.=0A> multiple inputs and mul=
tiple outputs), all but one list should be relegated to a repeated argume=
nts=0A> =E2=80=94 preferably the ones least likely to be used with glob e=
xpansion.=0A=0AThat's a very helpful way of putting it, and makes me real=
ize that subcommands (in the style of git =0Aand similar commands can als=
o be useful. If a CLI needs to be able to accept multiple argument lists=
=0Abut _only one in any given invocation_, then it can use a subcommand f=
ollowed by positional arguments.=0A(Or, and this is effectively the same =
thing, have a boolean option that changes the meaning of the =0Apositiona=
l arguments.)  That doesn't address the use case of needing to process mu=
ltiple lists in the=0Asame invocation, but it at least narrows the scope =
of the problem.=0A=0AThanks again!=0ADaniel