Using poptPrintHelp()

Pavel Roskin proski at gnu.org
Wed Sep 18 13:20:52 UTC 2002


Hello!

Each option for mc has two descriptions - one in function
print_mc_usage(), another in argument_table[], both in src/main.c.

This is suboptimal, error prone, requires using exactly the same
preprocessor directives in two parts of the code, and puts additional
strain on the translators.

I suggest that we change print_mc_usage() to use poptPrintHelp().  This is 
a standard popt function from src/popthelp.c, and it's already linked into 
the mc executable.

print_mc_usage() will only print text that poptPrintHelp() 
doesn't produce, such as "this_dir" and "other_panel_dir" arguments and 
"+number" for mcedit.

The opposite approach, removing description from argument_table[], would
not address the issue of synchronizing preprocessor directives between
print_mc_usage() and argument_table[].

The next step will be removal of all developer-only options, such as 
--background, --debuglevel and --ftplog, or maybe replacing them with just 
one option that would log everything.  There is no need to confuse users 
by the options that most of them won't ever use.

Any suggestions?

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin




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