Re: _arguments -n / $NORMARG (was: Re: [PATCH 1/2] __arguments: New completion function for _arguments.)

[Daniel Shahaf <d.s@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Oliver Kiddle wrote on Fri, Apr 09, 2021 at 21:24:58 +0200:
> On 1 Apr, Daniel Shahaf wrote:
> > Could you elaborate on what cases «_arguments -n», as implemented, would
> > cause breakage in?
> 
> I can't remember the exact details, it was a while ago that I went over
> the _arguments source code. But I think you can cause issues by having
> optional arguments to options and not just sets - those also produce
> multiple possible states. The field in castate was being misunderstood
> in general. Sorry I realize I'm being a bit vague but I don't remember
> the details sufficiently.
> 
> I think I intended to fixup each of the uses of the option first before
> raising the issue but I never got around to that.
> 
> > The manual doesn't already include such a warning, but I don't
> > understand how exactly $NORMARG is broken, so I can't document that.
> 
> It'd be less effort to simply drop it from the documentation or mark it
> strictly deprecated. It isn't particularly needed.

Well, I'm not fond of documenting problems from memory, but
a deprecation notice would probably be useful to readers, so no
objections from me to doing that.

Thanks,

Daniel