[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] doc/filters: document the unstability of the shorthand options notation.

[James Almer]

On 8/5/2017 2:15 PM, Nicolas George wrote:
> L'octidi 18 thermidor, an CCXXV, James Almer a écrit :
>> Users may not know that it's a shortcut to begin with.
> 
> It is exactly the reason I am proposing to document it here.

Indeed, but that's something that should have been done once AVOptions
gained the shorthand feature with the CLI, not several years down the
line and hundreds of scripts and tutorials potentially considering it a
fixed syntax.

At this point, breaking current shorthand behavior is pretty disruptive,
at least without some warnings and removal grace period.
My suggestion would be to keep dummy options in a similar fashion we
keep deprecated functions, so the shorthand notation does not start
trying to fill values of unexpected new or moved options. Making them
raise a warning about how it will stop working in the near future (No
need for two years like with API, one or two releases should be enough)
and maybe mention the new option that will be filled by the shorthand
notation.

Is there for that matter a way to achieve this for the CLI only and not
keeping the dummy options for library users?