Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] qemu-options.hx: Change from recommending '?' to 'help'

[Peter Maydell]

On 6 September 2012 15:55, Eric Blake <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 09/06/2012 07:54 AM, Peter Maydell wrote:
>> Update the -help output and documentation so that it recommends
>> 'help' rather than '?' for the various "list valid values for this
>> option" cases. '?' is deprecated (as it can fail confusingly if
>> not quoted), so it's better to steer users towards 'help'. ('?'
>> still works, for backwards compatibility.)
>>
>> This is the -help option part of the change otherwise done in
>> commit c8057f9, since we are now past release 1.2 and free to
>> change our help text without worrying about breaking libvirt.
>
> Agreed on that point.
>
>>  DEF("machine", HAS_ARG, QEMU_OPTION_machine, \
>>      "-machine [type=]name[,prop[=value][,...]]\n"
>> -    "                selects emulated machine (-machine ? for list)\n"
>> +    "                selects emulated machine (-machine help for list)\n"
>
> Would it help to add some quoting?

I thought about that but decided it would be better to just
do the simple ?->help change and not try to also fix the
formatting or quoting in the same patch.

> "                selects emulated machine ('-machine help' for list)\n"
>> @@ -64,11 +60,11 @@ HXCOMM Deprecated by -machine
>>  DEF("M", HAS_ARG, QEMU_OPTION_M, "", QEMU_ARCH_ALL)
>>
>>  DEF("cpu", HAS_ARG, QEMU_OPTION_cpu,
>> -    "-cpu cpu        select CPU (-cpu ? for list)\n", QEMU_ARCH_ALL)
>> +    "-cpu cpu        select CPU (-cpu help for list)\n", QEMU_ARCH_ALL)
>
> Here as well.
>
>>  STEXI
>>  @item -cpu @var{model}
>>  @findex -cpu
>> -Select CPU model (-cpu ? for list and additional feature selection)
>> +Select CPU model (-cpu help for list and additional feature selection)
>
> @code{-cpu help} here, to match the @code{-machine help} above.

Again, don't want to get into trying to fix random formatting.
The text in general is not consistent about quoting of things,
so it's not like this patch is introducing any new issues.

Anthony says he's planning to majorly overhaul the help output
anyway...

-- PMM