[tex-live] programs without --version

[Werner LEMBERG]

>     Why do the web2c/kpathsea-programs like
>     pdftex accept long options not only with "--" but also with "-"?
> 
> With GNU getopt, if you call getopt_long_only instead of
> getopt_long, it automatically accepts either - or -- as the prefix.
> And the options can be unambiguously abbreviated (unless you disable
> that feature, which we do for some scripts, but that's another
> story).  Hence you get -h, -help, --h, --help all meaning the same
> thing, for free.

Another reason is that X11 traditionally only uses one `-' even for
long options.


    Werner