Questions:
- do you agree with the multiline output for -F option ?
I think the -F option is indeed creeping featurism. If someone wants human-readable format they can post-process the easily parseable output to suit their needs.
You're probably right there. -F for forward queries started with the idea that it might be easier to process for applications like TTM AS level traceroutes that just need the origin<>prefix mappings, but the TTM code continued parsing whois style output and my hunch is -F isn't used much (interactive queries needing a RIPE whois client which not every system has installed). I could check the logfiles and see if -F is used by anyone but me. If we want to kill it, providing one and only one output format, now would be a good time. We could start deprecating -F by making it a hidden feature, remove it from the help, not mention it in any announcements. (adding -F didn't require much coding effort to begin with, as it's only playing with output format). -- Rene