[Fusioninventory-devel] Proposal for a new FusionInventory Agent command line parameter.

[Tomás Abad]

    Hello Guillaume,

On 21/06/12 21:00, Guillaume Rousse wrote:
> Le 18/06/2012 23:25, Tomás Abad a écrit :
>>     Hello,
>>
>>     Studying the FusionInventory Agent v2.2.0 command line options I
>> have missed one of them.
>>
>>     In the same way that there is the option --list-tasks to list the
>> tasks you can indicate in the option --no-task, why don't you include a
>> new option --list-categories to list those categories it's possible to
>> indicate in the option --no-category?
>>
>>     [...]

> It seems a good idea, and I was about to implement it. But I found two
> reasons not to do it.
>
> First, I don't want to add yet another task-specific option to the agent.
> '--list-categories' would only make sense for something that is supposed
> to be a plugin, not a core feature.
>
> For 2.3.x, we could prefix all current task-specific options to make
> them more explicit:
> --no-category   -> --inventory-no-category
> --scan-homedirs -> --inventory-scan-homedirs
> --html          -> --inventory-format
> --force         -> --inventory-force
> --tag           -> --inventory-tag
> --backend-collect-timeout -> --inventory-module-timeout
> --additional-content      -> --inventory-content-file

    I think it's a fantastic approach. It will do the command line 
options much clearer. I vote for that!.

> --no-p2p -> --wakeonlan-no-p2p

    I suppose that you would mean '--no-p2p -> --deploy-no-p2p', isn't it?

> Then, we could eventually add a new --inventory-list-categories

    Ok. I will wait to the next version of FusionInventory Agent v2.3.x.

> Second, there is quite a difference between available tasks and
> available categories: the first one depend of your installation, and can
> only be computed at runtime, whereas the second one is hardcoded in the
> code.

    So, as the categories is hardcoded, should be simple do it, isn't 
it? Just would have to be printed and exit.

> So, I just commited a change in agent documentation, in the options
> description, enumerating available values (commit #9636e2e). IMHO, it's
> a far better solution.

    In my opinion, it's also a far better solution at the moment but, 
for new versions of the agent, I would do that you have said above:

       1) Change '--a-task-specific-option  ->  --task-option'
       2) Add the new option '--inventory-list-categories'

    Please, think about that.

    Thanks in advance Guillaume. Best regards.