Question

I’m writing a program which takes filenames and options on the command line in the usual way, and also can be directed to read arguments from a file. I’m implementing the semi-standard — to turn off special treatment of subsequent arguments, and # as comment marker.

I also want to implement a marker for ‘disregard all arguments from here on’, i.e. an end marker. Is there a common/semi-standard way to indicate this? Or, what way would people find least surprising?

Answer 1

I would say implement multiline comments. C style /* */ would only work if you are not using wildcards in paths. XML style <!-- --> or asp <%-- --%> or matlab %{ %} might work. I think XML is the most recognized besides C.

This is also more useful than a simple terminator.