Hi all,
GNU binary tools list both their long and short form aliases in command-line help text, but by default, LLVM tools using the cl::opt interface only show the “main” form, which is usually the long-form. It is possible to override this behaviour, but it is not that common to do so in many tools. In some tools, there’s a mixture of behaviour between the two. I’d like to propose changing the default behaviour of cl::alias to not hide the short switch, or even better, find a way to wrap them into a single help text entry like GNU tools do.
Example GNU nm --help snippet:
-a, --debug-syms Display debugger-only symbols
Equivalent llvm-nm output:
–debug-syms - Show all symbols, even debugger only
Example llvm-readelf output:
-l - Alias for --program-headers
–program-headers - Display ELF program headers
These are just some examples. I’m sure there is (was?) a reason that aliases were hidden by default, but doing so can make it hard for people who are more familiar with short options, and lead to lots of unnecessary typing.
Thoughts?
James