Inconsistent error messages

[aryler]

string z => "bad option "z": must be bytelength, ... , or trimright"
info z => "bad subcommand "z": must be alias, ... , or version"
file z => "file, unknown command "z": should be atime, ... , isfile"
If a cmd with subcmds is created in C:
cmd z => "cmd, ambiguous command "z": should be something, ..., other"

Which form should I use for my programs?

[msteveb]

Tcl 8.6 does seems to be moving to towards standardising on "unknown or ambiguous subcommand ...", thus not differentiating between unknown and ambiguous, so that is a reasonable choice.

Although there are still situations where other wording is used.

% lsort -xxx z
bad option "-xxx":

% interp z
bad option "z":

[dbohdan]

#194 harmonizes some error messages related to lsearch and lsort with Tcl 8.7.

[msteveb]

The https://github.com/msteveb/jimtcl/tree/cmd-register branch resolves this by consistently using JimCmdUsage() to report usage errors.

Welcome to Jim version 0.82
. string z
string, unknown command "z": should be bytelength, byterange, cat, compare, equal, first, index, is, last, length, map, match, range, repeat, replace, reverse, tolower, totitle, toupper, trim, trimleft, trimright
[error] . info z
info, unknown command "z": should be alias, args, body, channels, commands, complete, exists, frame, globals, help, hostname, level, locals, nameofexecutable, patchlevel, procs, references, returncodes, script, source, stacktrace, statics, tainted, usage, vars, version
[error] . file z
file, unknown command "z": should be atime, copy, delete, dirname, executable, exists, extension, isdirectory, isfile, join, link, lstat, mkdir, mtime, mtimeus, normalize, owned, readable, readlink, rename, rootname, size, split, stat, tail, tempfile, type, writable