• barsoap@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        tar -xf is not really special combining short options isn’t uncommon.

        Where tar is nonstandard is that you can leave out the -, tar xf is actually how POSIX specifies it. And we’ve kinda come full circle on that one with many modern utilities using a command syntax, you can read tar xf as “tar extract file” just as you can read git pull as, well, “git pull”.

        If you want to see a standard command with truly non-standard syntax have a look at dd.

    • sonnenzeit@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Many do as it’s considered good practice, but it’s not guaranteed, it just depends on the individual command (program). Usually you can use the --help option to see all the options, so for instance tar --help.

    • Zangoose@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      Most commands will have expanded arguments started with 2 dashes that usually look like ‘–verbose-name-of-option’, they’re usually listed in the man page/documentation along with the abbreviated letter version