Bug#427777: Confusing error message/weird command line option parsing

[Jeroen van Wolffelaar]

Package: mdadm
Version: 2.5.6-9

root at euclides:~# mdadm /dev/md0 --bitmap internal
mdadm: -b cannot have any extra immediately after it, sorry.

This sentence doesn't parse properly. Cannot have any extra WHAT after
it? Also, I typed --bitmap, not -b. -b is '--brief' in this context.
mdadm should really tell me that --bitmap makes no sense in this case
(or even hint me how to achieve what I want).

But maybe much more importantly, mdadm should DEFINITELY not
translate long options into short ones and then interpret them in a
different context, this could prove disastrous if some innocent long
option maps to a possibly dangerous short option in some contexts. I
specified a long option intentionally, to prevent misinterpretation.

--Jeroen

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-4-xen-686
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages mdadm depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]       1.5.11       Debian configuration management sy
ii  libc6                       2.3.6.ds1-13 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  lsb-base                    3.1-23.1     Linux Standard Base 3.1 init scrip
ii  makedev                     2.3.1-83     creates device files in /dev

Versions of packages mdadm recommends:
ii  exim4-daemon-light [mail-tran 4.63-17    lightweight exim MTA (v4) daemon
ii  module-init-tools             3.3-pre4-2 tools for managing Linux kernel mo

-- debconf information excluded

-- 
Jeroen van Wolffelaar
Jeroen at wolffelaar.nl (also for Jabber & MSN; ICQ: 33944357)
http://Jeroen.A-Eskwadraat.nl