4 replies to this topic

[gor]

Hi,
I am writing Synopsis (in man page/documentation) to my program and I was wondering how to write something like this:
program [-a | -b]
here | stands for xor (I guess) - is there any way how to write or? so that -a and -b can be used together or separately?

thanks a lot

[Alexander]

"|" is the bitwise operator OR (bits that are set in A or B are set in result C).

For example when you would wish to define all bitflags (-a -b): char allPossibleOpts = a | b;

You would be looking for the boolean operator OR, which is in this case "||", although you say "used together or separately" which makes little sense.

[gor]

Nullw0rm said:

although you say "used together or separately" which makes little sense.

I meant, that all these are legal:
program -a -b
program -a
program -b

[dbug]

@Nullw0rm: I think gor is talking about standard command line syntax to specify available options and valid combinations for some program, not programming languages.

If both options (-a and -b) are optional but can be specified simultaneously, the common representation is this:

Quote

program [-a] [-b]

[Alexander]

You will not need anything special if there are no conflics, a synopsis can be as simple as "PROGRAM [OPTIONS] ... FILE ..." (verbatim)

Writing them in brackets are for constraints, such as an optional parameter (not needed):
"PROGRAM -a [-b shortdesc] [-c num | -d alpha] ... FILE ..."