[flashrom] Misleading successful message if you do not specify option --image

[R. Diez]

>> In the past, I wasn't specifying any --image, and flashrom just flashed
>> the one and only that I had defined in my layout file.
> 
> That's not accurate. If you didn't specify any --image to include, it
> just ignored the layout. Which unlikely was the intention if one speci-
> fied a layout in the first place.


Are you sure? The reason why I added the layout in the first place (long 
before version 0.9.9) was to save time in my sort of "production line".

These are new flash chips, and I only need to flash the first megabyte. 
Writing all 8 megabytes was taking longer. I believe that I timed the 
process, at least with the first flashrom version that I tried, and 
using the layout was a little faster.


> I'm not sure about failing (i.e. returning an error code), though.
> Technically, not writing anything when no --image arguments are given
> seems correct.

If you are calling flashrom, surely you do not expect it to be a "no 
operation" that should just succeed. That is counterintuitive. We 
end-users are not logic-driven mathematicians!

At the very least you should change the wording from "Warning: Chip 
content is identical to the requested image." and "Erase/write done." to 
"no operation specified", "nothing to do" or something similar.

I personally would return an error code too.

The help text should also say that "--layout" requires at least one 
--image. Or at least mention that, without at least one --image 
argument, it becomes a noop.

Best regards,
   R. Diez