[llvm-dev] Short aliases in help text

[Jordan Rupprecht via llvm-dev]

Heavy +1 in favor of changing --help so it automatically combines
alias+flag together. Perhaps that's one of the reasons aliases are hidden
by default; so they don't clutter --help. If aliases are provided w/ their
command, there's very little added clutter.

--help lists "-a, --debug-syms" but man pages list it as
"[-a|--debug-syms]". I think either (or something else entirely) is fine.

On Mon, Jun 10, 2019 at 10:12 AM James Henderson via llvm-dev <
llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> GNU binary tools list both their long and short form aliases in
> command-line help text, but by default, LLVM tools using the cl::opt
> interface only show the "main" form, which is usually the long-form. It is
> possible to override this behaviour, but it is not that common to do so in
> many tools. In some tools, there's a mixture of behaviour between the two.
> I'd like to propose changing the default behaviour of cl::alias to not hide
> the short switch, or even better, find a way to wrap them into a single
> help text entry like GNU tools do.
>
> Example GNU nm --help snippet:
> -a, --debug-syms       Display debugger-only symbols
>
> Equivalent llvm-nm output:
> --debug-syms      - Show all symbols, even debugger only
>
> Example llvm-readelf output:
> -l                           - Alias for --program-headers
> <lots of other options...>
> --program-headers            - Display ELF program headers
>
> These are just some examples. I'm sure there is (was?) a reason that
> aliases were hidden by default, but doing so can make it hard for people
> who are more familiar with short options, and lead to lots of unnecessary
> typing.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> James
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