[help-gengetopt] Re: Re: wishlist: mandatory parameters

[T]

On Sun, 01 Oct 2006 13:55:07 +0200, Papp Gyozo (VBuster) wrote:

>> I want, with the help of "mandatory parameter", it can be:
>> 
>>   Usage: sample1 [OPTIONS]... SOURCE DEST
>> 
>>   SOURCE mandatory parameter to ...
>>   DEST ... copy SOURCE to DEST
> 
> Actually SOURCE and DEST is called unnamed options in gengetopt because as

I search for the keyword "unnamed" in the manual but didn't find anything.

> hint: gengetopt --help | grep -i unname

returns nothing.

> I think what you really want is to be able to name some of the unnamed
> options (SOURCE & DEST) and to use those as a normal mandatory
> parameters. If those are missing prgram exits with failure. Am I right?

Yes. 

But I guess it is hard to implement naming those unnamed options, and
I think it is better to let the main program handle the stored
parameters in the array 'inputs' of the args_info structure, not gengetopt. 

What gengetopt can do, however, is to document those mandatory parameters.
After all that's the on-line help that users see. If they are not
documented in the on-line help, for the 99% of people who don't read man
pages, they have to try-and-error to know what parameters are mandatory.