From: andreww591@gmail.com (Andrew Warkentin)
Subject: [TUHS] Dash options
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2017 23:49:54 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAD-qYGpTk9PhTMQcmtuZqpPkSSUGvQO4bDrjSnUYegqdjy7Jug@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.21.1711281703290.780@aneurin.horsfall.org>
On 11/27/17, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 27 Nov 2017, Jon Steinhart wrote:
>
>> Does anybody know the history of dash options? Were they a UNIX thing
>> or did UNIX borrow them from something earlier?
>
> An equivalent question would be why "/" was chosen as the directory
> separator, as it was commonly used for flags.
>
Multics had dash options, so that's presumably where Unix got them
from. I believe slash options were mostly a DEC thing that DOS and its
successors borrowed (I think they originated in TOPS-10). I don't
think there was any widespread syntax for options when the first
versions of Unix were written, and slash and dash options weren't the
only syntaxes used (e.g. JCL-ish key=value options were used on some
systems). The thing that I wonder about was why ">" wasn't used as the
directory separator when paths were added to Unix, since that's what
Multics used.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2017-11-28 6:49 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 22+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2017-11-28 5:51 Jon Steinhart
2017-11-28 6:05 ` Dave Horsfall
2017-11-28 6:49 ` Andrew Warkentin [this message]
2017-11-28 11:18 ` Ralph Corderoy
2017-11-28 11:49 ` Michael Kjörling
2017-11-28 12:46 ` Ralph Corderoy
2017-11-28 18:01 ` Lawrence Stewart
2017-11-28 19:36 ` Paul Winalski
2017-11-28 20:03 ` Clem Cole
2017-11-28 6:28 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2017-11-29 19:16 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
[not found] ` <20171204054651.GA17671@eureka.lemis.com>
[not found] ` <20171204215701.l9Pvr%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
2017-12-05 13:22 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2017-12-07 5:15 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2017-11-28 13:19 Noel Chiappa
2017-11-28 18:20 ` Clem Cole
2017-11-28 21:56 ` Dave Horsfall
[not found] <mailman.376.1511899437.9955.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
2017-11-28 21:30 ` Paul Ruizendaal
2017-11-29 1:23 Doug McIlroy
2017-11-29 1:37 ` George Michaelson
2017-11-29 2:22 ` Charles Anthony
2017-11-29 14:03 Noel Chiappa
2017-11-29 20:29 ` Charles Anthony
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