[m-dev.] Getopt extension for discussion

[Fergus Henderson]

Thomas Charles CONWAY, you wrote:
> 
> I was talking with Philip the other day, and he asked for a "maybe string"
> option type so that you can have:
> 	--opt "a string"
> or	--no-opt
> 
> He argued that this was better than using the empty string as a sentinel
> for the "no" case. The example application was filenames (in which case
> "" would always be a valid sentinel). Following is a diff that adds the
> requested functionality.
> 
> Can anyone give a realistic example where "" is not a valid sentinel, where
> the maybe string option would be a real advantage?

I had a brief chat with Philip yesterday, and he convinced me that
this is a worthwhile change.  I'd be happy with using "" as a sentinel,
so long as only the developer has to know about it.  But Philip has
examples where the default string is non-empty (e.g. a configuration
file may default to "/etc/foo"), but the user can disable the option.
It's not so bad for a developer to set the default to "", but its
pretty ugly if the user has to know about the sentinel.

> -% We support four different option types: bool, int, string, and
> +% We support four different option types: bool, int, string, maybe-string

s/four/five/
s/maybe-string/maybe_string/

-- 
Fergus Henderson <fjh at cs.mu.oz.au>   |  "I have always known that the pursuit
WWW: <http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh>   |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
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