Article 159462 of comp.os.vms:
Hello,

many thanks to John J. Stafford, who wrotes me the meaning of the qualifiers.
Here is the copy of it:

     -d   Turns on SO_DEBUG flag on the socket.

     -l   Gives more statistics than if ping is used without options.  Long
          output.

     -r   Bypasses the normal routing tables and sends directly to a host on
          an attached network.  If the host is not on a directly-attached
          network, an error is returned.  This option can be used to ping a
          local host through an interface that has no route through it.  For
          example, after the interface was dropped by routed.

     -v   Lists ICMP packets other than ECHO RESPONSE that are received. Ver-
          bose output.

-- 
John J. Stafford - Winona State University Information Services

Regards R. Wingert