On 11/9/05, Alan Barrett <apb@cequrux.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 08 Nov 2005, Jim Blandy wrote:
> > I think the ellipsis notation got introduced to Subversion when I used
> > it to describe skel formats in the database, and in some other places.
> > The way we use it there, 'FOO ...' always means 'zero or more repetitions
> > of FOO'.
>
> I would expect "FOO ..." to mean "one or more repetitions of FOO",
> and "[FOO ...]" to mean "zero or more repetitions of FOO". I believe
> that my expectation is in line with the conventions used in unix man
> pages.
The above conventions seem quite reasonable. But it seems like the
meaning of "ARG ..." is not commonly agreed upon. Perhaps we should
stick with Daniel Rall's suggestion, which trades a little verbosity
for improved clarity.
For zero or more repetitions of ARG:
[ARG ...]
For one or more repetitions of ARG:
ARG [ARG ...]
Daniel Rall wrote:
> The help form of:
>
> command ARG [ARG ...]
>
> trades minimal repetition for a signficant improvement in clarity over
> today's form of:
>
> command ARG ...
--
David James -- http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~james
Received on Wed Nov 9 16:50:38 2005