Bug 669974

Summary:	-j (jobs) parameter cannot be combined (e.g. -Oj1) - silently ignored
Product:	Portage Development	Reporter:	soundbastlerlive
Component:	Core - Interface (emerge)	Assignee:	Portage team <dev-portage>
Status:	CONFIRMED ---
Severity:	enhancement	CC:	ninpo
Priority:	Low
Version:	unspecified
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Package list:		Runtime testing required:	---

Description soundbastlerlive 2018-10-30 16:26:37 UTC

For many years I've had to avoid combining -jX with something else. I never bothered to create a bug, but I think it is one.

AFAIK it is common (or even POSIX/getopt) that single letter/dash options can be combined, with at least one that requires an arg if you place it at the end. Probably

E.g. 'tail -fn3' (follow and show last 3 lines)

But e.g. 'emerge -Oj1' will silently ignore the 'j1' and use whatever is set in make.conf.

Is this on purpose or should it be fixed?

IMHO it should either work or cause an error, but not be silently ignored.

Thanks!

Comment 1 soundbastlerlive 2021-08-09 11:41:35 UTC

this still happens 3 years later, command line switches silently ignored!

works:
emerge -O -j1
emerge -Oq -j1

does not work:
emerge -Oj1
emerge -Oqj1

Comment 2 Ninpo 2023-07-04 20:56:40 UTC

I can confirm that the built in argument parser should be able to work with arguments such as -Oqj1 and have that understood as -O -q -j1.

Lowering priority as it's a POSIX compliance bug, I am however looking into this.