To (non-)answer your stated question first: I have no good answer for "why" beyond "it's the (POSIX) standard".

The gnu tools happily ignore this standard, so I have no qualms about doing the same.

Adressing your want: I don't think you can with Getopt::Std, but Getopt::Long can be configured to allow it, and I invariably do so. The configure option is called "permute", and is usually the default. It is also implied by the "gnu_getopt" option, which makes it behave like GNU getopt_long, and is what I normally use:

use Getopt::Long ':config', 'gnu_getopt';
# or, during runtime:
# Getopt::Long::Configure('gnu_getop');

[download]

print "Just another Perl ${\(trickster and hacker)},"
The Sidhekin proves Sidhe did it!

In reply to Re: Why is it good practice for a cli script to take switch args before file list? by Sidhekin
in thread Why is it good practice for a cli script to take switch args before file list? by leocharre

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.