Re: "true.c" is bloated, I suggest "int main() { return 0; }

[Philip Rowlands]

On Fri, 4 Aug 2006, Helge Hafting wrote:

> I noticed that the "true" and "false" programs are somewhat
> bloated, on i386 they need 3 4k-pages of code when the trivial
> implementation in the subject line only need one.
[snip]

> I can only guess that someone is trying to standardize the
> use of --help and --version.  But standardization can be
> overdone and doing things to the extreme
> don't really make sense.

You guess correctly - these options are recommended by the GNU coding 
standards. I respectfully disagree that the --help output is excessive 
and better avoided; rather that a user should expect --help to behave 
consistently across all coreutils/GNU apps. As familiar as they are to 
experienced users, the names "true"/"false" are not self-descriptive.


Cheers,
Phil