Re: -v ?

On Wed, 7 Apr 1999, Daniel Stenberg <daniel.stenberg_at_sth.frontec.se> wrote:
>
> A long time ago the way I've made the -v flag work was debated and
> not really appriciated.
>
> How are your feelings about this today? I like to be able to regenerate
> a bare config template file this way, but perhaps it would be useful
> with a flag that just shows what variables that have been altered
> without all those comments?

Well, if somebody wants to strip the comments, it could be easy enough piping the command to a 'grep -v'.

   csh> hypermail -c /path-to/.hmrc -v | grep -v '^#' | grep -v '^$'

But this doesn't really help generate a blank template, unless your .hmrc config file has *all* the variables displayed in it.

Personally, I see some utility in having the -v flag display the comments. I think it is an easier way for new users to reference all the variables when they want to review them (as opposed to man pages). It also has the benefit of showing variables compiled into the binary you are using, which has advantages when the documentation is out of date (as we all know happens often).

Perhaps two flags? One to show variables with comments (as now) and another to show a blank template?

-- 

   Craig A. Summerhill, Systems Coordinator and Program Officer
   Coalition for Networked Information
   21 Dupont Circle, N.W., Washington, D.C.   20036
   Internet: craig_at_cni.org   AT&Tnet (202) 296-5098