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
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.