Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 03/17] iotests: ask qemu for supported formats

[Thomas Huth <thuth@redhat.com>]

On 05.06.2018 00:40, Eric Blake wrote:
> On 06/04/2018 05:34 AM, Thomas Huth wrote:
>> On 04.06.2018 09:18, Markus Armbruster wrote:
>>> Roman Kagan <rkagan@virtuozzo.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> Add helper functions to query the block drivers actually supported by
>>>> QEMU using "-drive format=?".  This allows to skip certain tests that
>>>> require drivers not built in or whitelisted in QEMU.
>>>>
> 
>>>> +    supported_formats=$($QEMU_PROG $QEMU_OPTIONS -drive format=\?
>>>> 2>&1 | \
>>>
>>> Use of '?' to get help is deprecated.  Please use 'format=help', and
>>> update your commit message accordingly.
>>
>> Is it? Where did we document that?
> 
> Hmm, we haven't documented it yet, but it's been that way since commit
> c8057f95, in Aug 2012, when we added 'help' as the preferred synonym,
> and have tried to avoid mention of '?' in new documentation (as it
> requires additional shell quoting).  I'm guessing we'll probably see a
> patch from you to start an official deprecation window?

I'm using '?' regularly on my own, so don't expect a patch from
my side here ;-)
Anyway, we still use the question mark in our documentation, e.g.:

options

    is a comma separated list of format specific options in a name=value format.
    Use -o ? for an overview of the options supported by the used format or see
    the format descriptions below for details.

or:

-b, --blacklist=list

    Comma-separated list of RPCs to disable (no spaces, ‘?’ to list available RPCs)

So calling it deprecated sounds wrong to me.

 Thomas