Yeah but `tar xvzf archive.tgz` also works so I remain wary of tar. Basically every time I have tried to do something that's not tfz or cfz or xfz, it went wrong until I checked the manpage.
Right. I probably picked one of the most flaky examples, sorry for that. Let's say `ls -lah` that (I hope...) is less ambiguous.
In my defense, the specific example I gave is valid for both GNU and BSD versions of tar. If I understood correctly, the issue you point to (order among short form flags) is related to the fact that `f` expects an argument and consequently has to appear in the last position.
Ah, it's not a direct argument when you omit the hyphen and fall into "traditional" mode. I think after years and years I can finally wrap my head around how that works. :D
You don't "have to" use the examples, you can read them as get a feel, and read the captions to find the one that does what you want...
Which is faster and probably safer than scanning the documentation for individual flags and hopping you got the nuances right...
See, the two cases aren't:
(1) Thoroughly study man page -> (2) Become expert at the command's options (3) try command secure in your mastery of it
vs
(2) Check tldr examples -> (2) try command
They're rather:
(1) Open man page, (2) scan and skim the man page and the dozens of irrelevant flags, caveats, and obscure options, until you find some flags that look to do what you want, (3) half-read them, (4) try command
vs
(2) Check tldr examples, (2) find an example that does what you want (which is usually one of the covered use cases) (3) try the command using the example syntax
I'm generally satisfied by ZSH inline options summary, but I'm happy to see a sane instantiation of this, it clearly fits a need. Thanks for the pointer (and sorry for the troll :/).
