Re: btrfs-progs: -q/--quiet not accepted for "btrfs subvolume" subcommands

[David Sterba <dsterba@suse.cz>]

On Thu, Mar 20, 2025 at 03:46:13AM +0500, Roman Mamedov wrote:
> On Wed, 19 Mar 2025 23:12:56 +0100
> David Sterba <dsterba@suse.cz> wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Dec 17, 2024 at 07:56:49PM +0500, Roman Mamedov wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > > 
> > > # btrfs --version
> > > btrfs-progs v6.6.3
> > > 
> > > # btrfs sub create --help
> > > usage: btrfs subvolume create [options] [<dest>/]<name> [[<dest2>/]<name2> ...]
> 
> ^ This line appears to instruct that there's one place to put all the options;
> so if you're looking into a documentation fix, I would suggest modifying that.

That is certainly one option to improve it. The pattern I'm following is
from git that thas the multi level subcommand structure, global and
command-specific options. If you check 'man git' there are options that
are affect e.g. pager or editor, but none of these options is mentioned
in 'git-log' manual page and the help text also omits the global
options. "git log [<options>] [<revision-range>] [[--] <path>...]"

> Like,
> 
> > > usage: btrfs [global-options] subvolume create [local-options] [<dest>/]<name> [[<dest2>/]<name2> ...]
> 
> But this looks messy. So IMO the ideal would be to just not require the
> separation and accept global options also after the subcommand name.

I see the rationale here and the goal of the command line interface is
to provide convenices, while currently forcing the global options to be
only after the 'btrfs' term is still a bit uncommon.

As long as the option names don't clash with the command options it
would be possible to extend the semantics of the current "global" to
global in the sense of "anywhere the options can appear".

The original motivation was to unify the options to one place but based
on the feedback and my own experience I think the current split is not a
good pattern. Implementing the new semantics will need a review of all
the commands if there are potential clashes but overall I agree it would
be a usability improvement in the end.