Re: lilypond -dread-file-list= dows not produce the expected output

[David Kastrup]

Colin Hall <address@hidden> writes:

> On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 10:43:01AM +0100, Colin Hall wrote:
>> 
>> On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 01:58:00AM -0700, Eluze wrote:
>> > running the command
>> > 
>> > lilypond -dread-file-list=read-file-list.txt   --> displays the help text
>> > (same as lilypond -h)
>> 
>> Searching both open and closed trackers revealed nothing about this
>> option. I wonder when it was last used?
>> 
>> Anyway, by experimentation I discovered that the correct syntax, on
>> both Linux and Windows, is:
>> 
>> lilypond -dread-file-list read-file-list.txt
>> 
>> or
>> 
>> lilypond -d read-file-list read-file-list.txt
>> 
>> Note the lack of an equals sign.
>> 
>> What this option appears to do is to tell Lilypond to treat the
>> Lilypond source file as a list of files to process.
>> 
>> I think the following is the topic of your other post, Eluze: what I
>> also found was that the file containing the list of files to process
>> must have Linux line endings. A Windows plain text file is not
>> correctly interpreted.
>
> Just to be clear then, there is no bug to report here.
>
> This was a usage problem.

"Must have Linux line endings" is not a mere "usage problem".  Probably
not even when this restriction would be _very_ clearly documented rather
than not at all.  There is a number of reasons Windows users are getting
to feel the consequences of brain-dead historical design choices from
their system.  And it is likely that we have quite a few circumstances
where they are getting the shaft unintentionally.

But as long as Windows is a supported platform, a line-organised file
needs to be able to contain platform-specific line endings.

And in any case: behavior that can only be figured out and interpreted
by trial and error and code reading is, at the very least, a
documentation issue.

-- 
David Kastrup