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4 points

Does every Linux command have options as words instead of single letters?

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6 points
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Many do as it’s considered good practice, but it’s not guaranteed, it just depends on the individual command (program). Usually you can use the --help option to see all the options, so for instance tar --help.

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8 points

Tar is as old as IT, that’s why it’s syntax is a bit special.

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5 points

tar -xf is not really special combining short options isn’t uncommon.

Where tar is nonstandard is that you can leave out the -, tar xf is actually how POSIX specifies it. And we’ve kinda come full circle on that one with many modern utilities using a command syntax, you can read tar xf as “tar extract file” just as you can read git pull as, well, “git pull”.

If you want to see a standard command with truly non-standard syntax have a look at dd.

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1 point
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Nono, dash-parameters are new in fancy GNU tar. And POSIX is not old.

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4 points

Most commands will have expanded arguments started with 2 dashes that usually look like ‘–verbose-name-of-option’, they’re usually listed in the man page/documentation along with the abbreviated letter version

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