[GRASS-dev] Re: g.mlist

[Glynn Clements]

Huidae Cho wrote:

> > re. "sep= changed to separator= while keeping backward compatibility"
> > 
> > two points-
> > ) I think it should be changed to fs= to match the rest of GRASS.
> >  
> > ) backwards compatibility with grass7 (trunk) is nice to do, but
> > ) it is not at all guaranteed. ie we can break things as we like. it's
> > ) the dev-branch6 where backwards compatibility must be strictly
> > ) followed.

I would suggest separator=, changing the rest of GRASS to match if
compatibility is desired.

fs= isn't immediately clear, while separator= is, and can be
abbreviated to sep=.

More generally, we should try to avoid using abbreviations in option
names. The user can abbreviate them if they desire, but should have
the option of using a non-abbreviated name for clarity.

I know that creates problems with multi-word names. I will look into
the possibility of supporting multi-word abbreviations at some point. 
If that works out, it would be possible to call it field_separator and
abbreviate it to fs=, fsep= etc (not sure about sep=).

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>