Re: [RFC] windres' -I option

[Nick Clifton <nickc at redhat dot com>]

Hi Chris, Hi Dimitrie,

> >My proposal is simple: rename -I to something else (I suggest -J),
> >and introduce -I as a synonym for --include-dir.
> 
> This is fine with me.  The few times I've wanted to use this, I've
> always been annoyed that -I doesn't do what I want.
> 
> Lets wait a few days to see if anyone (i.e., most importantly, nickc)
> disagrees before we make this change, though.


> Now, I realize this is a controversial change -- what about
> backwards compatibility? Luckily, the situation is not as bad
> as it might seem. Firstly, this option does not seem to be used
> all that often in practice. Second, the nature of the option allows
> for a simple scheme. That is, with -I now used for include directories,
> we can try to match the 3 possible old values (res, rc, coff).
> If they match, we consider it a input format specifier, issue a
> deprecation warning, and behave in the old fashion. Otherwise, 
> consider the input an include directory. But what if one want to
> specify 'res' or 'coff' as an include dir? Well, apart from the
> fact that this is _very_ unlikely, all they have to do is to
> prefix those values with './': that is ./res or ./coff.

I would have no objections to the change (and in fact would encourage
it) provided that the above intelligence was added to the -I option,
and of course that it was documented in the manual.  If a test case or
two could be added to the binutils testsuite that would be peachy.

Cheers
        Nick