OpenBSD sdiff Question

[David O'Brien]

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?

-- 
-- David  (obrien at FreeBSD.org)