Re: msi: Tweak msiexec's usage message.

[Julian Rüger]

Hi Francois and wine-devel,

while we're at it, shouldn't these
> "Advertise a product:\n"
> "\t/j[u|m] package [/t transform] [/g languageid]\n"
> "Apply a patch:\n"
> "\t/p patch_package [property]\n"
> "\t/p patch_package /a package [property]\n"

also be put in curly brackets?

Like this:

\t/j[u|m] {package} [/t transform] ...
\t/p {patch_package} [property]\n
...

Best,
Julian

msi: Tweak msiexec's usage message.

[Francois Gouget]

On Fri, 4 May 2012, Julian Rüger wrote:
> Hi Francois and wine-devel,
>
> while we're at it, shouldn't these
> > "Advertise a product:\n"
> > "\t/j[u|m] package [/t transform] [/g languageid]\n"
> > "Apply a patch:\n"
> > "\t/p patch_package [property]\n"
> > "\t/p patch_package /a package [property]\n"
>
> also be put in curly brackets?
>
> Like this:
>
> \t/j[u|m] {package} [/t transform] ...
> \t/p {patch_package} [property]\n
> ...

My understanding is that for msiexec the curly brackets are only used to 
enclose cases where there is two or more alternatives: {a|b|c}. With 
{required parameter} being an exception to the rule, maybe because it in 
fact represents a list.

It would be nice if all of Wine's tools used the same conventions for 
the usage messages.

msi: Tweak msiexec's usage message.

[Frédéric Delanoy]

On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 3:21 PM, Francois Gouget  wrote:
> On Fri, 4 May 2012, Julian Rüger wrote:
> > Hi Francois and wine-devel,
> >
> > while we're at it, shouldn't these
> > > "Advertise a product:\n"
> > > "\t/j[u|m] package [/t transform] [/g languageid]\n"
> > > "Apply a patch:\n"
> > > "\t/p patch_package [property]\n"
> > > "\t/p patch_package /a package [property]\n"
> >
> > also be put in curly brackets?
> >
> > Like this:
> >
> > \t/j[u|m] {package} [/t transform] ...
> > \t/p {patch_package} [property]\n
> > ...
>
> My understanding is that for msiexec the curly brackets are only used to
> enclose cases where there is two or more alternatives: {a|b|c}. With
> {required parameter} being an exception to the rule, maybe because it in
> fact represents a list.
>
> It would be nice if all of Wine's tools used the same conventions for
> the usage messages.

The msiexec conventions look sane to me: [ ] for optional and { } for
mandatory parameters (*only* when a choice/list is involved). It's
also what's used in other wine commands "/?" results (e.g. 'start',
'ipconfig', 'regedit', etc.).

Frédéric

msi: Tweak msiexec's usage message.

[Francois Gouget]

On Sat, 5 May 2012, Frédéric Delanoy wrote:
[...]
> The msiexec conventions look sane to me: [ ] for optional and { } for
> mandatory parameters (*only* when a choice/list is involved). It's
> also what's used in other wine commands "/?" results (e.g. 'start',
> 'ipconfig', 'regedit', etc.).

It's no so consistent.

msiexec uses names like 'product_code' but taskkill uses 'ProcessID' 
(which aspell does not like) and wineconsole uses '<command>'.

regedit describes what 'filename' and 'regpath' means independently of 
the option that uses these, msiexec and start do not describe what 
things like 'package' or 'program_filename' are.

In xcopy it's 'Usage: ... Where: ...' while in wineconsole it's 'Usage: 
... Options: ...' and msiexec has a totally different structure (and 
does not very clearly differentiate commands and options).

For ipconfig there's spaces around brackets while in dxdiag or msiexec 
where's no space around the brackets.

xcopy says '[/Y] [/-Y]' when it should probably be '[/Y | /-Y]', 
although msiexec would likely describe outside of usage line as 
'/{Y|-Y}'.