commandline syntax

[Werner Koch]

Hi,

someone raised the question, whether to change the commandline syntax,
so that it is more like tar(1) or ps(1).  I have no POSIX specs so I
can't decide whether this is a good idea. Recent versions of ps(1) etc
give you a warning, that the use of - is depreciated.

Example of a new syntax:

$ gpg -v sign 0x12345678
instead of 
$ gpg -v --sign 0x12345678

The problem with this ist that it is not anymore possible to use 
gpg without an command and an filename - we yould have to add a new
command like "default" or "process" to work around this.

 * One letter commands should also work. 
 * Still allow commands with leading dashs.
 * Should abbreviated commands work?
 * I think implementation is quite easy.

Ways to migrate:  

  - an option to allow for the new syntax (not a good idea)
  - an option to allow for the old syntax
  - simply switch to the new syntax and hope that no scripts or
    programs use only "gpg filename".

Comments?


-- 
Werner Koch at guug.de           www.gnupg.org           keyid 621CC013