Author: Stan Eisenstat
Subject: Re: [Cs323] Command Line Argument Follow Up
Date: Saturday, 05 Sep 2020, 13:46:59

    > Message Posted By: Unknown
    >
    > If I have the following argument where /hello and /test dont exist:
    >   "/c/cs323/Hwk1/fiend /hello test -f"
      the output is:
    >   fiend: invalid argument: -f
    >
    > But, If I remove the -f, the output of
    >   "/c/cs323/Hwk1/fiend /hello /test"
    > is
    >   fiend: stat(/hello) Failed
    >   fiend: stat(test) Failed
    >
    > Shouldn't the output of the first command be:
    >
    >   fiend: stat(/hello) Failed
    >   fiend: stat(test) Failed
    >  fiend: invalid argument: -f
    >
    > Since the files are valid but fiend just failed?

No.  As stated in the specification

  * The list of FILENAMEs begins with the first argument that is neither -P
    nor -L and ends just before the next argument that begins with a -.

Thus in the first example, -f cannot be the name of a file,
and thus must be an invalid option/test/action/operator,
which causes fiend to write a message to stderr and exit.

--Stan-