Remove -a option for safety reasons (but keep --adopt).

3 files changed, 12 insertions, 6 deletions

diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 2f4f87e..8cfd33a 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -2,6 +2,15 @@ News file for Stow.
 
 * Changes in version 2.1.4
 
+** Remove -a option (--adopt still available)
+
+   As --adopt is the only option which allows stow to modify files, it
+   is considered potentially dangerous (especially for stow package
+   directories which are not managed by a version control system).
+   Therefore it seems prudent to require a bit more effort from the
+   user to enable this option, minimising the change of enabling it
+   via a typo.
+
 ** Improve error message when stow package is not found.
 
    The error message displayed a path to the missing stow package
diff --git a/bin/stow.in b/bin/stow.in
index ca91955..45bc0f0 100755
--- a/bin/stow.in
+++ b/bin/stow.in
@@ -180,8 +180,6 @@ Restow packages (first unstow, then stow again). This is useful
 for pruning obsolete symlinks from the target tree after updating
 the software in a package.
 
-=item -a
-
 =item --adopt
 
 B<Warning!>  This behaviour is specifically intended to alter the
@@ -478,7 +476,7 @@ sub process_options {
         \%options,
         'verbose|v:+', 'help|h', 'simulate|n|no',
         'version|V', 'compat|p', 'dir|d=s', 'target|t=s',
-        'adopt|a',
+        'adopt',
 
         # clean and pre-compile any regex's at parse time
         'ignore=s' =>
@@ -631,7 +629,7 @@ OPTIONS:
                           if the file is already stowed to another package
     --override=REGEX      Force stowing files beginning with this Perl regex
                           if the file is already stowed to another package
-    -a, --adopt           (Use with care!)  Import existing files into stow package
+    --adopt               (Use with care!)  Import existing files into stow package
                           from target.  Please read docs before using.
     -p, --compat          Use legacy algorithm for unstowing
 
diff --git a/doc/stow.texi b/doc/stow.texi
index 3576f1a..2d042c3 100644
--- a/doc/stow.texi
+++ b/doc/stow.texi
@@ -328,8 +328,7 @@ The regular expression is anchored to the beginning of the path relative to
 the target directory, because this is what you will want to do most of the time.
 
 @cindex adopting existing files
-@item -a
-@itemx --adopt
+@item --adopt
 @strong{Warning!} This behaviour is specifically intended to alter the
 contents of your stow directory.  If you do not want that, this option
 is not for you.