Add long forms for multi-character short-form flags and possibly deprecate short forms

Many of GHC's long form flags use BSD-style single-dash prefixes (e.g. -keep-llvm-files, -rtsopts). Many others use gnu-style double-dash prefixes (e.g. --version, --supported-languages).

This is arguably more confusing than necessary. IMHO it seems reasonable to add Gnu forms for our BSD-style flags (e.g. add --keep-llvm-files) and consider deprecating the latter at some point in the future.

changed milestone to %8.2.1

changed weight to 5

added Ttask Trac import labels

changed title from Add long forms for -keep-* flags and possibly deprecate short forms to Add long forms for multi-character short-form flags and possibly deprecate short forms

changed the description

I would just like to point out that these flagnames do follow a system currently. Only the mode flags start with two dashes. These are:

$ ghc801 --show-options | grep '^--'
--help
--version
--numeric-version
--info
--show-options
--supported-languages
--supported-extensions
--show-packages
--print-project-version
--print-project-git-commit-id
--print-booter-version
--print-stage
--print-build-platform
--print-host-platform
--print-target-platform
--print-have-interpreter
--print-object-splitting-supported
--print-have-native-code-generator
--print-support-smp
--print-unregisterised
--print-tables-next-to-code
--print-rts-ways
--print-leading-underscore
--print-debug-on
--print-libdir
--print-global-package-db
--print-c-compiler-flags
--print-c-compiler-link-flags
--print-ld-flags
--show-iface
--make
--interactive
--abi-hash
--frontend

The other 877 flags all start with a single dash.

changed milestone to %8.4.1

Given that 8.2.1-rc1 is imminent, I'm bumping these off to the 8.4

changed milestone to %8.6.1

This ticket won't be resolved in 8.4; remilestoning for 8.6. Do holler if you are affected by this or would otherwise like to work on it.

changed milestone to %8.8.1

These won't be fixed for 8.6, bumping to 8.8.

changed milestone to %8.10.1

Bumping milestones of low-priority tickets.

added Pnormal label

removed milestone