"man <command>" and "<command> --help" should do what "help <command>" does

Project:JNode Shell
Component:User interface
Category:feature request
Priority:normal
Assigned:Unassigned
Status:closed
Description

Reproduction:
1. man route
2. route --help
3. help route

Actual result:
Steps 1 and 2 don't work.
Step 3 works.

Expected result:
Steps 1 and 2 work, as they are standard Unix (POSIX, I think) commands.

Importance:
It's important that they work, because the point of them are exactly users who don't know the system well.
I did not know about "help route" until lsantha told me about it, before thinking that there simply was no built-in help.

#1

Submitted by Stephen Crawley on Tue, 12/30/2008 - 14:12.

Implementing 'man ' as an alternative for 'help ' is a reasonable suggestion.

Implementing ' --help' as a way to get syntax-based help is (IMO) a bad idea, since it interferes with an application's use of '--help' to mean something different. Besides, the '--help' option is not part of the POSIX standard; it is just a GNU utility convention.

#2

Submitted by lsantha on Tue, 12/30/2008 - 14:22.

Could 'man' be an other alias for the help command?

#3

Submitted by Stephen Crawley on Tue, 12/30/2008 - 23:39.

Yes, that's what I meant. I'll implement it.

#4

Submitted by Stephen Crawley on Sat, 01/03/2009 - 05:17.
Status:active» fixed

Implemented 'man' as an alias for 'help'. The command syntax(es) are the same, modulo the command name.

#5

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 01/17/2009 - 06:00.
Status:fixed» closed

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for two weeks with no activity.