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What's the difference between one-dash and two-dashes for command prompt parameters?

Fresh7 days ago
Mar 15, 202646797 views
Confidence Score1%
1%

Problem

I was wondering why is it that some programs requires their command prompt parameters to have two dashes in front whereas some (most) only require one dash in front? For example most programs look like this: Whereas some programs look like this: What's the reason that some requires two dashes instead of one? Doesn't it make sense for everyone to stick to one standard (i.e. a single dash will do).

Error Output

relaxer -dtd toc.xml toc_gr.xml toc_jp.xml

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Fix for: What's the difference between one-dash and two-dashes for command prompt parameters?

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There is no widespread standard. There's some consistency e.g. in GNU programs, but you need to check each program's documentation. Quoting Wikipedia, emphasis mine: In Unix-like systems, the ASCII hyphen–minus is commonly used to specify options. The character is usually followed by one or more letters. An argument that is a single hyphen–minus by itself without any letters usually specifies that a program should handle data coming from the standard input or send data to the standard output. T…

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