Re: [PATCH for-5.2 4/4] qemu-option: warn for short-form boolean options

[Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>]

On 03/11/20 17:08, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
>> +Short-form boolean options (since 5.2)
>> +''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
>> +
>> +Boolean options such as ``share=on``/``share=off`` can be written
>> +in short form as ``share`` and ``noshare``.  This is deprecated
>> +for all command-line options except ``-chardev` and ``-spice``, for
>> +which the short form was in wide use.
> 
> So IIUC, the short form was possible to use for absolutely /any/
> boolean property ?

s/boolean// (yikes)

> IMHO if we're going to deprecate short forms, we should do it
> universally including chardev and spice. Arguably spice/chardev
> are the most important ones to give an explicit warning about
> precisely because their widespread usage means a heads up is
> important to users.

Chardevs will probably become user-creatable objects; for -spice I was
hoping that it would be QAPIfied as "-display spice" which does not
support short forms, but I'm not sure if Gerd agrees.  In both cases,
the problem would be taken care of in a different way.

I can certainly warn for all of them, but I was thinking of the
lowest-impact option for 5.2 since we're already in soft freeze.

Paolo