-h, --help option

[anatoly techtonik]

I can argue that man pages are absent at least on Windows, but it does
not matter here, because comparing manual with command line help is
wrong.

In other words --help option is not a replacement for a full doc and it is
not meant to provide detailed information about software. However, it
provides a useful reference for most used options. See git for example,
which provides both.

`ssh --help` can not lie more than existing output from `ssh`, but to avoid
any lies at all, at the end of --help output in proposed solution there is this
line:
>> use ssh --help --verbose to show more options.
and it can be changed to:
   use `ssh --help --v` to see more options and `man ssh` for detailed info


On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 1:00 PM, Markus Friedl <mfriedl at gmail.com> wrote:
> ssh is too complex and a --help option would be a simplistic lie.
>
> However, it has an awesome manpage, and this is where the documentation should be.
>
>
>
>> Am 23.06.2014 um 11:44 schrieb anatoly techtonik <techtonik at gmail.com>:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> tmux author refuses to add -h, --help option, because OpenSSH
>> does not have it [1]. I don't see why convenience features of tmux
>> should depend on OpenSSH, but because I have no other choice
>> (and got curious) I ask here - why OpenSSH doesn't provide -h or
>> --help option?
>>
>> I use PuTTY as my client, which processes --help option, and for
>> `ssh` binary I usually use Google + StackOverflow. Having --help
>> option that works as an human friendly entrypoint for more
>> information about command would certainly save some time.
>>
>> Current output from `ssh --help`:
>> usage: ssh [-1246AaCfgkMNnqsTtVvXxY] [-b bind_address] [-c cipher_spec]
>>           [-D [bind_address:]port] [-e escape_char] [-F configfile]
>>           [-i identity_file] [-L [bind_address:]port:host:hostport]
>>           [-l login_name] [-m mac_spec] [-O ctl_cmd] [-o option] [-p port]
>>           [-R [bind_address:]port:host:hostport] [-S ctl_path]
>>           [-w local_tun[:remote_tun]] [user@]hostname [command]
>>
>> Proposed output:
>> C:\Program Files\Git\bin>ssh.exe --87
>> usage: ssh [options] [user@]hostname [command]
>>
>> options:
>>  -h --help     show this help
>>  -v --verbose    increase verbosity
>>  --version     show version
>>
>>  -p port        port if different from default (default:22)
>>  -l login_name
>>  -i identity_file
>>  -F configfile
>>
>> tunnel options:
>>  -D [bind_address:]port   run SOCKS server
>>  -L [bind_address:]port:host:hostport
>>                                     connect local port to remote host
>>  -R [bind_address:]port:host:hostport
>>                                     forward local port for remote
>> access at host:hostport
>>
>> use ssh --help --verbose to show more options.
>>
>>
>> These can be expanded in `ssh -h -v`. I don't remember what these mean.
>>
>>  [-1246AaCfgkMNnqsTtVvXxY] [-b bind_address] [-c cipher_spec]
>>           [-e escape_char]
>>           [-m mac_spec] [-O ctl_cmd] [-o option]
>>           [-S ctl_path]
>>           [-w local_tun[:remote_tun]]
>>
>>
>> 1. http://sourceforge.net/p/tmux/mailman/message/32480639/
>>
>> --
>> anatoly t.
>> _______________________________________________
>> openssh-unix-dev mailing list
>> openssh-unix-dev at mindrot.org
>> https://lists.mindrot.org/mailman/listinfo/openssh-unix-dev



-- 
anatoly t.