Re: [avrdude-dev] [RFC] New usage text

[E. Weddington]

On 24 Feb 2003 at 17:41, Joerg Wunsch wrote:

> Anyway, it's just a forced usage error.  I often call an unknown
> program with -help, in the hope that the combination of the -e, -h, -l
> and -p option is an error to that program, and will throw me a usage
> message. ;-)
> 
> It's common Unix style that throwing usage() is considered an error.
> BSD reserves exit code 64 for it (EX_USAGE in <sysexits.h>).  No idea
> why gcc prints its usage strings to stdout, but remember, GNU's Not
> Unix. :-)
> 
> Even those Windows programs that have a Unix background do it that
> way, btw.  Can't remember how to use netstat -r to add a new route?
> Try "netstat -r foo" to get the usage message.  It doesn't fit onto
> the screen, so you need more.  "netstat -r foo | more"?  Doesn't work,
> the message goes to stderr. ;-) "netstat -r foo 2>&1 | more", but only
> if you've got WinNT or above. :-) With Win9x and its MS-DOS
> command-line interpreter, you're outta luck...

I tried it under cygwin and you're correct. It's odd that GNU and 
Windows actually do something in common (throwing usage text to 
stdout). I was unaware that usage on stderr was typical for Unix.

Thanks for the explanation!

Eric