Re: mutually exclusive group of options

Papp Gyozo (VBuster) wrote:
> Group options have already their individual _arg & _orig fields in
> the structure, as far as I know. Let me rephrase what I mentioned
> previously: be able to set a default group option! If not specified
> anything at all from the group gengetopt may behave as if this option
> were set. (--init in my example.)

yes probably this is quite a clean semantics:

- check that only one group option has a default
- set the default
- then use only the _given field to check conflicts

probably this should do

> 
> I admit this is not the best approach to this specific problem but: -
> it suffices my needs - and I think it is a really viable feature
> anyhow.
> 
>> clean semantics of group options (flag options was a legacy of the
>> very first version of gengetopt - I'm not the first author of
>> gengentopt - and I think that flag options make a little sense
>> too)...
> 
> Well, I share your point of view about flags. I just noted that we
> had to deal with them, too.

indeed, my main idea was to depecrate them and remove them in new releases

> 
> Even a "base"
>> option with a default value might make dependent options harder to
>>  understand: an option that depends on another option implicitly
>> requires the other option to be provided, otherwise it would make a
>> little sense.
> 
> You are right in theory. Actually my main concern is being compatible
> with previous version where this --init option was simply optional.
> Now this --init option seemed the best counterpart of the newly
> introduced --attach option, that was the reason why I wanted them to
> form a group. (From this point you could get know the whole story.)
> 
>> A situation like the one you describes implicitly requires mutually
>>  exclusive groups (not groups of mutually exclusive options), i.e.,
>> the
>> 
>> What do you think about that?
> 
> Well, actually I didn't like to dream about such rocking new features
> but if you are willing to add it I will be very glad to see and use
> it. ;)

great :-)
then as soon as I have something ready I'll post it!

cheers
	Lorenzo

-- 
Lorenzo Bettini, PhD in Computer Science, DSI, Univ. di Firenze
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