[GRASS-dev] g.remove usage syntax

[Moritz Lennert]

On 05/05/15 15:41, Margherita Di Leo wrote:
> Hi Moritz,
>
> On Tue, May 5, 2015 at 2:27 PM, Moritz Lennert
> <mlennert at club.worldonline.be <mailto:mlennert at club.worldonline.be>> wrote:
>
>     On 05/05/15 12:28, Margherita Di Leo wrote:
>
>         Dear All,
>
>         I find the current syntax of g.remove a bit cumbersome, because it
>         doesn't seem to me in line with what happens with other commands.
>         If I want to remove the vector file foo, I have to type:
>
>         g.remove vect name=foo -f
>
>         Without the "name=" it won't work, which is not in line to the
>         usage of
>         other commands.
>         To me it would be more natural (and indeed i always type wrong
>         the first
>         time) something like:
>
>         g.remove vect name foo -f
>
>         being name one of the two options (name, pat) that could be
>         identifier=
>         or something better. In this case, it would be possible to type the
>         former command or the extended form:
>
>         g.remove type=vect identifier=name name=foo -f
>         or
>         g.remove type=vect identifier=pattern name="f*" -f
>         (g.remove vect pat "f*" -f)
>
>         what do you think?
>
>
>     AFAIK, this would mean a fundamental change in the way the parser works.
>
>
> hmm.. I don't understand why. I tried to tailor this proposal on the
> current behavior of the parser, as far as I could understand it. Can you
> explain a bit more?

AFAIK, the parser only accepts the first argument as positional 
argument, for all the other arguments you have to provide the parameter 
name, so in your proposal

g.remove vect id=name searchstring=foo

would work, but

g.remove vect name foo

wouldn't.

As a side question: why do you find

g.remove type=vect id=pattern name="f*"

easier

than the current

g.remove type=vect pattern="f*"

?

The current behaviour does mean less typing (and just as much compared 
to your proposal with positional parameters, except for the '=').

Moritz