I'm relearning D. I'm using the reference compiler (DMD) and I am a bit confused with how the compiler 'switches' are supposed to be used.

I find some 'switches' that require an equal (=) symbol when a value is required to be passed in.

-boundscheck=[on|safeonly|off]
-color[=on|off]
-conf=path

-debug
-debug=level
-debug=ident

But there are also 'switches' requiring a value that do not require/use the equal (=) symbol.

-Dddocdir
-Dffilename

-odobjdir
-offilename

I'm wondering if this small irregularity should be made consistent or maybe I misunderstood something.

On Monday 12 October 2015 17:38, ric maicle wrote:

> I'm wondering if this small irregularity should be made consistent or maybe I misunderstood something.

As far as I know, the difference just happened, and there is point to it. The style without "=" is older and wasn't followed when new switches were added.

Consistency between different switches has to be weighed against stability here. So far stability has won, I guess.

FWIW, dmd seems to be in good company as gcc is in a similar situation. For example, `gcc -std=c11 -ofoo foo.c` is a proper gcc command line, generating the file "foo".

On Tuesday, 13 October, 2015 01:46 AM, anonymous wrote:
> On Monday 12 October 2015 17:38, ric maicle wrote:
>
>> I'm wondering if this small irregularity should be made consistent or
>> maybe I misunderstood something.
>
> As far as I know, the difference just happened, and there is point to it.
> The style without "=" is older and wasn't followed when new switches were
> added.
>
> Consistency between different switches has to be weighed against stability
> here. So far stability has won, I guess.

I think you made it clearer now. And changing it in minor releases will break build scripts. 'Deprecating' command line switches may be an option and possibly better addressed in a major release.

Also, someone may have already filed an issue about this.

On Monday, 12 October 2015 at 15:38:27 UTC, ric maicle wrote:
> I'm relearning D. I'm using the reference compiler (DMD) and I am a bit confused with how the compiler 'switches' are supposed to be used.
>
> I find some 'switches' that require an equal (=) symbol when a value is required to be passed in.
>
> -boundscheck=[on|safeonly|off]
> -color[=on|off]
> -conf=path
>
> -debug
> -debug=level
> -debug=ident
>
> But there are also 'switches' requiring a value that do not require/use the equal (=) symbol.
>
> -Dddocdir
> -Dffilename
>
> -odobjdir
> -offilename
>
> I'm wondering if this small irregularity should be made consistent or maybe I misunderstood something.

Yeah, it is a bit confusing and should be tidied up (using the established deprecation path) really.

On 10/12/2015 11:34 AM, Gary Willoughby wrote:
> On Monday, 12 October 2015 at 15:38:27 UTC, ric maicle wrote:
>> -Dddocdir
>> -Dffilename
>>
>> -odobjdir
>> -offilename
>>
>> I'm wondering if this small irregularity should be made consistent or
>> maybe I misunderstood something.
>
> Yeah, it is a bit confusing and should be tidied up (using the
> established deprecation path) really.

If we accept that = cannot be a part of a file name then we could support -D=ddocdir as well, but I checked and = can be used as part of a name at least on Linux. Which may explain why those switches are not consistent with the rest and we cannot support -D= at this point.

Ali

On Monday 12 October 2015 19:46, anonymous wrote:

> and there is point to it

Ugh, should have been: and there is *no* point to it.

On Tuesday, 13 October, 2015 02:39 AM, Ali Çehreli wrote:
> If we accept that = cannot be a part of a file name then we could
> support -D=ddocdir as well, but I checked and = can be used as part of a
> name at least on Linux. Which may explain why those switches are not
> consistent with the rest and we cannot support -D= at this point.

I think I'm confused. I see the following switches using the = symbol:

  -config=path
  -debuglib=name
  -defaultlib=name
  -deps=filename

On 10/12/2015 01:03 PM, ric maicle wrote:
> On Tuesday, 13 October, 2015 02:39 AM, Ali Çehreli wrote:
>> If we accept that = cannot be a part of a file name then we could
>> support -D=ddocdir as well, but I checked and = can be used as part of a
>> name at least on Linux. Which may explain why those switches are not
>> consistent with the rest and we cannot support -D= at this point.
>
> I think I'm confused. I see the following switches using the = symbol:
>
>    -config=path
>    -debuglib=name
>    -defaultlib=name
>    -deps=filename
>

Perhaps those were introduced after the other ones.

I am agreeing with the other posters that we cannot fix the other ones because if anyone used = before, it was the part of the path. (Maybe... Never tried... :) ) So, we cannot change the syntax today because then some users' paths will lose the = character.

Ali

On Mon, Oct 12, 2015 at 11:33 AM, ric maicle via Digitalmars-d-learn < digitalmars-d-learn@puremagic.com> wrote:

> On Tuesday, 13 October, 2015 01:46 AM, anonymous wrote:
>
>> On Monday 12 October 2015 17:38, ric maicle wrote:
>>
>> I'm wondering if this small irregularity should be made consistent or
>>> maybe I misunderstood something.
>>>
>>
>> As far as I know, the difference just happened, and there is point to it. The style without "=" is older and wasn't followed when new switches were added.
>>
>> Consistency between different switches has to be weighed against stability here. So far stability has won, I guess.
>>
>
> I think you made it clearer now. And changing it in minor releases will break build scripts. 'Deprecating' command line switches may be an option and possibly better addressed in a major release.
>
> Also, someone may have already filed an issue about this.
>

Ya I did a while ago: "new DIP41: dmd/rdmd command line overhaul." http://forum.dlang.org/thread/mailman.1468.1369129517.4724.digitalmars-d@puremagic.com

On Tuesday, 13 October, 2015 05:43 AM, Ali Çehreli wrote:
> Perhaps those were introduced after the other ones.
>
> I am agreeing with the other posters that we cannot fix the other ones
> because if anyone used = before, it was the part of the path. (Maybe...
> Never tried... :) ) So, we cannot change the syntax today because then
> some users' paths will lose the = character.

Would it be possible to deprecate the old syntax, provide notice to
all D users and make it obsolete after a year?