Should -v stand for verbose or version?

[jnicklas]

Title pretty much says it all. Currently -v means verbose (at least if a command is specified). I always get a bit irritated if -v doesn't print the version information.

Maybe cargo could have both? So cargo -v prints version information, whereas cargo build -v does a verbose build?

[lucy]

-V is very often used for version instead of -v.

[indiv0]

I think that mixing it (i.e. the example of cargo -v and cargo build -v) would create unecessary confusion akin to gits current problems with args.

It would be best to pick one case for version and one case for verbosity then apply it consistently.

rustc itself uses -v and --version to indicate version, but this appears to be an outlier.
Generally, UNIX tools use -V and/or --version for version and -v for verbosity (curl, rm, ssh, tar, etc.).
Occaisionally, they omit -V entirely and just use --version.

This then boils down to whether we want to follow rustc or UNIX conventions.

In my opinion, the best option is to use -v and --verbose for verbosity, --version for version, omit -V entirely, and submit a PR for rustc to follow the same pattern (i.e. no longer use -v for version).

[wycats]

I agree with @indiv0's conclusion.

[alexcrichton]

Closing, sounds like -v is verbose and at a later date we may add -V as "print the version", which we currently don't have.