[RFC PATCH v2 00/17] Tidy command option parsing and use it a bit

[Tom Rini]

On Tue, May 19, 2026 at 05:31:26PM -0600, Simon Glass wrote:

> We have had getopt() for over five years but it is not much used. It is
> much easier to understand arg-parsing using getopt() and it avoids
> common errors. As the named maintainer I decided to look at how to make
> more use of it.
> 
> So this series explores the impact of converting a few commands to use
> getopt() instead of ad-hoc parsing. It updates getopt() to handle flags
> anywhere in the cmdline and provides a few helpers to reduce
> boilerplate.
> 
> The chosen commands are:
> 
> - echo: very simple with one flag and fixed ordering (worst case?)
> - hash: fairly simple with just one flag
> - env grep/export/import - fuller examples
> 
> The series also adds a recommendation to use getopt() for new commands.
> 
> To try to reduce the code-size increase, a lower-case function is added
> and called from a few places. The difference is fairly marginal.
> 
> v2 includes further attempts to reduce code size, by making reordering
> a Kconfig option, dropping some printing and some intensive optimisation
> of the env commands.

Let us return to the comments from v1 again:
https://lore.kernel.org/u-boot/20260515203311.2555651-1-sjg@chromium.org/

Sean was saying that nvedit should be a best case for the conversion. In
v1, grep was no change and "export and import" was 164 bytes on "qcom",
which I chose because it already enabled GETOPT. Let us now look at v2.
Here, grep, export and import are three commits:
10: cmd: nvedit: Use getopt() in env grep
11: cmd: nvedit: Use getopt() in env export
   aarch64:  w+   qcom
+(qcom)   636 |         char    buf[32];
+(qcom)       |                 ^~~
w+(qcom) cmd/nvedit.c: In function 'do_env_export':
w+(qcom) cmd/nvedit.c:636:17: warning: unused variable 'buf' [-Wunused-variable]
   aarch64: (for 1/1 boards) all +4.0 data +16.0 rodata -12.0
            qcom           : all +4 data +16 rodata -12
               u-boot: add: 0/0, grow: 0/-1 bytes: 0/-32 (-32)
                 function                                   old     new   delta
                 do_env_export                              608     576     -32
12: cmd: nvedit: Use getopt() in env import
   aarch64: (for 1/1 boards) all +1.0 data +56.0 rodata -55.0
            qcom           : all +1 data +56 rodata -55
               u-boot: add: 0/0, grow: 1/0 bytes: 100/0 (100)
                 function                                   old     new   delta
                 do_env_import                              692     792    +100

So grep is unchanged, export is a small reduction but import is growing,
but less.

My feedback is this. If you are going to bother with RFC v3, please just
limit it to converting nvedit and showcasing that it's an improvement to
convert. And if it's not, as Sean said in v1 we might need to revisit
the interface.

-- 
Tom
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 228 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/attachments/20260519/5da66422/attachment.sig>