Re: [PATCH v2] block: Print simple help text when calling "-blockdev help"

[Eric Blake <eblake@redhat.com>]

On Wed, Oct 21, 2026 at 08:34:20AM -0500, Eric Blake wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 14, 2026 at 11:00:36AM +0200, Thomas Huth wrote:
> > Other command line options like "-chardev", "-netdev" or "-device"
> > already present the user with a list of available parameters, but
> > when running "-blockdev help", there is currently only an error
> > message. There is already the possibility to run "-drive format=help",
> > but it does not seem to be documented, so this is not very useful
> > for the average user. Thus let's improve this situation by providing
> > a proper list of available drivers when running QEMU with
> > "-blockdev help".
> > 
> > Signed-off-by: Thomas Huth <thuth@redhat.com>
> > ---
> >  v2: Don't re-use the code from "-drive format=help" and print the
> >      help in a better readable way instead
> 
> One format per line rather than space-separated does seem a bit more
> machine-parseable, although the output no longer fits in my preferred
> terminal size without scrolling. I guess "more readable" is subjective
> ;)

That said, we aren't very consistent; "-chardev help" indents each
line by two, while "-netdev help" and this patch for "-blockdev help"
does not indent.  May be worth a followup patch.

-- 
Eric Blake, Principal Software Engineer
Red Hat, Inc.
Virtualization:  qemu.org | libguestfs.org