Suggestions for implementation of a command line interface

Question

I am redesigning a command line application and am looking for a way to make its use more intuitive. Are there any conventions for the format of parameters passed into a co

Answer 1

Command line conventions vary from OS to OS, but the convention that's probably gotten both the most use, and the most public scrutiny is the one supported by the GNU getopt package. See http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node/Using-Getopt.html for more info.

It allows you to mix single letter commands, such as -nr, with longer, self-documenting options, such as --numeric --reverse. Be nice, and implement a --help (-?) option and then your users will be able to figure out all they need to know.