8.4.2.4 Immediate Action Attributes

Certain options may need to be processed early. For example, in order to suppress the processing of RC files, it is necessary to process the command line option --no-load-opts before the RC files are processed. To accommodate this, certain options may have their enabled or disabled forms marked for immediate processing. The consequence of this is that they are processed ahead of all other options in the reverse of normal order.

Normally, the first options processed are the options specified in the first homerc file, followed by then next homerc file through to the end of RC file processing. Next, environment variables are processed and finally, the command line options. The later options override settings processed earlier. That actually gives them higher priority. Command line immediate action options actually have the lowest priority of all. They would be used only if they are to have an effect on the processing of subsequent options.

`immediate'

Use this option attribute to specify that the enabled form of the option is to be processed immediately. The help and more-help options are so specified. They will also call exit() upon completion, so they do have an effect on the processing of the remaining options :-).

`immed-disable'

Use this option attribute to specify that the disabled form of the option is to be processed immediately. The load-opts option is so specified. The --no-load-opts command line option will suppress the processing of RC files and environment variables. Contrariwise, the --load-opts command line option is processed normally. That means that the options specified in that file will be processed after all the homerc files and, in fact, after options that precede it on the command line.