Add a --version and --help option

[Baron Schwartz]

xtrabackup has no --version or --help options. For writing wrapper scripts such as innobackupex, we really need a --version option. And --help is a standard option too.

[Vadim Tkachenko (vadim-tk)]

--help works for me

./xtrabackup_55 --help
./xtrabackup_55 Ver undefined Rev undefined for 5.5.6-rc unknown-linux-gnu (x86_64)
Open source backup tool for InnoDB and XtraDB

Copyright (C) 2009 Percona Inc.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation version 2
of the License.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You can download full text of the license on http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.txt

Usage: [./xtrabackup_55 [--defaults-file=#] --backup | ./xtrabackup_55 [--defaults-file=#] --prepare] [OPTIONS]

Default options are read from the following files in the given order:
/etc/my.cnf /etc/mysql/my.cnf /usr/local/etc/my.cnf ~/.my.cnf
The following groups are read: mysqld xtrabackup
The following options may be given as the first argument:
--print-defaults Print the program argument list and exit.
--no-defaults Don't read default options from any option file.
--defaults-file=# Only read default options from the given file #.
--defaults-extra-file=# Read this file after the global files are read.
  --target-dir=name destination directory
  --backup take backup to target-dir
  --stats calc statistic of datadir (offline mysqld is recommended)
  --prepare prepare a backup for starting mysql server on the backup.
  --export create files to import to another database when prepare.
  --apply-log-only stop recovery process not to progress LSN after applying
                      log when prepare.
  --print-param print parameter of mysqld needed for copyback.
  --use-memory=# The value is used instead of buffer_pool_size
  --suspend-at-end creates a file 'xtrabackup_suspended' and waits until the
                      user deletes that file at the end of '--backup'
  --throttle=# limit count of IO operations (pairs of read&write) per
                      second to IOS values (for '--backup')
  --log-stream outputs the contents of 'xtrabackup_logfile' to stdout
                      only until the file 'xtrabackup_suspended' deleted (for
                      '--backup').
  --incremental-lsn=name
                      (for --backup): copy only .ibd pages newer than specified
                      LSN 'high:low'. ##ATTENTION##: checkpoint lsn must be
                      used. anyone can detect your mistake. be carefully!
  --incremental-basedir=name
                      (for --backup): copy only .ibd pages newer than backup at
                      specified directory.
  --incremental-dir=name
                      (for --prepare): apply .delta files and logfile in the
                      specified directory.
  --tables=name filtering by regexp for table names.
  --tables-file=name filtering by list of the exact database.table name in the
  ...

[Baron Schwartz (baron-xaprb)]

Vadim,

On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 5:01 PM, Vadim Tkachenko <email address hidden> wrote:
> --help works for me

You will get the same thing if there is no command-line options at
all. There is no actual --help option, so there is no difference
between "I want help" and "there is a syntax error in your command."
This behavior can change in the future and break things.

[Valentine Gostev (longbow)]

Confirmed, xtrabackup --help option returns the same output as running without options and the exit code is 1.

With 1.6:
[root@gval-cent5-64-n401 ~]# xtrabackup > /dev/null
[root@gval-cent5-64-n401 ~]# echo $?
1
same for --help and --version options.