[RFC] Now Redoing Ncat's Output Options

[Kris Katterjohn <katterjohn () gmail com>]

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Hey everyone,

While discussing redoing Ncat's proxy options[1] I had forgotten that "-x" is
actually already in use for providing a hex dump of a session.

I must admit I don't recall ever using output options such as this while using
any Netcat incarnation.  The original Netcat uses -o for a hex dump, while
upon first glance OpenBSD Netcat and Netcat6 don't seem to offer anything like
this at all.

But this email isn't about removing these options, just renaming them.  Unless
there are any compelling reasons to remove them, in which case feel free to
mention them.

So anyway, Ncat has the following output options available:

  -o, --output (ASCII output)
  -x, --hex-dump (Hex output)

I'm in favor of changing these to names resembling Nmap's output options.  And
not just because -x needs to be changed per the proxy discussion: I think that
if there is going to exist more than one output option, they should be at
least more similar in name.

My first thought is this:

  -oA (ASCII)
  -oH (Hex)

Would this be confusing since Nmap has -oA for "all" log formats?  What about
using -oN instead?  That may correspond better since ASCII is "normal."

Ncat is a separate program from Nmap, but (especially since they'll ship
together now) I worry about having option names too similar or too different
between the two.

What's your take on this?  Even if you don't use these options, what do you
think of the new names?

Thanks,
Kris Katterjohn

[1] http://seclists.org/nmap-dev/2008/q4/0144.html

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