Re: [PATCH] qemu-options.hx: Replace deprecated -M example

[Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>]

On 12/2/25 08:14, Thomas Huth wrote:
> On 02/12/2025 01.57, dave@treblig.org wrote:
>> From: "Dr. David Alan Gilbert" <dave@treblig.org>
>>
>> The -M option was deprecated by -machine in 2011 by 80f52a669
>> and isn't actually documented in the manpage, but is still used in
>> one of the examples.  Replace it by -machine.
>> -M still gets used all over the place in other docs, and I'm
>> not sure I realised it was deprecated until Julian pointed out it
>> wasn't actually documented.
> 
> -M is not mentioned in docs/about/deprecated.rst, so no, it's not 
> officially deprecated. And I think it's a nice short hand feature for an 
> option that is used very often, so I also don't think that we should 
> ever remove it. Thus I think it would be better to simply add it back to 
> qemu-options.hx instead.

Yes, its status as a synonym of -machine started only in 2015, in a 
commit that didn't even mention that effect:

     commit 364c3e6b8dd7912e01d19122d791b8c8f6df4f6c
     Author: Marcel Apfelbaum <marcel@redhat.com>
     Date:   Wed Jan 7 14:11:38 2015 +0200

     vl.c: fix regression when reading machine type from config file

     After 'Machine as QOM' series the machine type input triggers
     the creation of the machine class.
     If the machine type is set in the configuration file, the machine
     class is not updated accordingly and remains the default.

     Fixed that by querying the machine options after the configuration
     file is loaded.

     Cc: qemu-stable@nongnu.org
     Reported-by: William Dauchy <william@gandi.net>
     Signed-off-by: Marcel Apfelbaum <marcel@redhat.com>
     Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>

(I wonder who's the guy that committed it).  But it was a good idea, and 
there's no need to change this.

Paolo