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Re: function with description


From: Greg Wooledge
Subject: Re: function with description
Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2021 18:40:03 -0400

On Tue, Jun 29, 2021 at 12:29:01AM +0200, lisa-asket@perso.be wrote:
> Perhaps I can call the function this way `headrc h`

You can add argument (option) processing and have the function print a
usage message to stderr (or stdout) when invoked incorrectly.  One of my
earlier examples did precisely that.

In my example, I printed the message if the function was called with
anything other than 3 arguments.  Calling it with the single argument
"h" would definitely trigger it.

More generally, if you write a command (function, script, whatever) that
accepts a variable number of arguments, and would like to reserve one
special option for "tell me how to use you", the traditional choices
are "help", "-h", "-?" and "--help".  ("help" without a leading hyphen
only makes sense for commands that have a mandatory subcommand argument.)

I've never seen anyone rsserve "h" for this purpose, but it's your
command, and you can write it however you wish.



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