Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Do you have an example of a CLT that has a dry run flag? I am very confused on how to design one for some CLTs I'm making.

If you call an API to retrieve data, how can that be a dry run? Are you suppose to give fake examples with fake output?



apt-get. It simply tells you what it's going to remove/install.

Calling an API to retrieve data is not really the type of program that requires a dry-run flag. It's mainly useful for commands that change the state of something in ways that could potentially be destructive, unwanted and/or hard to revert.


The AWS CLI has --[no]-dry-run in many of its subcommands.

https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-usage-h...


make has -n or --dry-run. But originally it was called -n and that has been used many cli tools.




Consider applying for YC's Summer 2026 batch! Applications are open till May 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: