Actually this reminds me, what is the deal with tar command recommendations to use or not use dash? I know GNU tar accepts both (e.g.) tar xvf file.tar and tar -xvf file.tar, but at some points people were like “NO! Don’t use the dash! It’s going to maybe cause issues somewhere, who knows!” and I was like “OK”. Something to do with people up designing the Unix specs?
POSIX. POSIX didn’t get designed but documented behaviour that was portable between different UNIX flavours and was then declared a standard.
If you’re annoyed by it just consider the xvf in tar xvf to be a subcommand as pull is in git pull. Tar simply has a fancy subcommand syntax. At least it’s not dd.
Actually this reminds me, what is the deal with tar command recommendations to use or not use dash? I know GNU tar accepts both (e.g.)
tar xvf file.tarandtar -xvf file.tar, but at some points people were like “NO! Don’t use the dash! It’s going to maybe cause issues somewhere, who knows!” and I was like “OK”. Something to do with people up designing the Unix specs?I didn’t even know the dash was optional. I guess you learn something new everyday.
I still use it though. Its how I learned it all those years ago and its ingrained as muscle memory when typing the command.
idk if it’s optional why bother typing it
personally, it is a little easier to read, especially in a script. and its more consistent with other commands
POSIX. POSIX didn’t get designed but documented behaviour that was portable between different UNIX flavours and was then declared a standard.
If you’re annoyed by it just consider the
xvfintar xvfto be a subcommand aspullis ingit pull. Tar simply has a fancy subcommand syntax. At least it’s notdd.No idea, but with tar I never use dashes. Just tar xf away.