OpenBSD sdiff Question

[Dan Nelson]

In the last episode (Mar 17), Steven Kreuzer said:
> On Sat, Mar 15, 2008 at 11:29:19PM -0700, David O'Brien wrote:
> > On Sat, Mar 15, 2008 at 03:21:01PM -0700, Bert JW Regeer wrote:
> > > Even if BSD has no tradition to keep a separate program version, it is 
> > > still very handy to be able to give this data to other developers if 
> > > something is failing.
> > 
> > $ ident failing-binary is the output that means something.  A version
> > string will not.
> > 
> > 
> > > Programs that don't have a -v or --version switch are frustrating to
> > 
> > Anyone used to working on BSD will not expect a -v switch.  It
> > isn't part of BSD tradition.  The simple fact there is no obivous
> > "version" to print just shows that in a OS that is developed and
> > built as a whole, having a version on the util is meaningless.
> > 
> > > Dropping -v would be a bad thing, and make the tools not
> > > compatible, thus breaking many scripts that do expect a -v.
> > 
> > Come on, how many scripts do you write that do "sdiff -v" today?
> 
> I have to agree with this.
> 
> I will submit the port without -v/--version
> and worse comes to worse, add it in later if enough people complain.

On the other hand, some programs that are contributed sources or are
developed outside the FreeBSD cvs tree do have versions of their own. 
awk and tar, for example both recognize the --version flag (but not -v
since that is already used).

-- 
	Dan Nelson
	dnelson at allantgroup.com