Minimalistic command line option parsing via -s

Hi,

I know, I'm slow, but I finally figured out the minimalistic
command line options parsing that zenspider et al use in utilities
like flog and sow (the gem skeleton generator that comes with Hoe).

Consider, for example,

  #!/usr/bin/env ruby -s

  $r ||= false

  if defined? $h then
   puts "usage: #{File.basename $0}"
   puts " -h this usage message"
   puts " -r recursive"
  end

  puts "Recursive option: #$r"

The secret sauce is the '-s' option passed to the interpreter,
which according to the PickAxe indicates, "Any command-line switches
found after the program filename, but before any filename arguments
or before a --, are removed from ARGV and set to a global variable
named for the switch."

Later,

···

--
Bil Kleb
http://nasarb.rubyforge.org

Bil Kleb wrote:

Hi,

I know, I'm slow, but I finally figured out the minimalistic
command line options parsing that zenspider et al use in utilities
like flog and sow (the gem skeleton generator that comes with Hoe).

Consider, for example,

#!/usr/bin/env ruby -s

$r ||= false

if defined? $h then
  puts "usage: #{File.basename $0}"
  puts " -h this usage message"
  puts " -r recursive"
end

puts "Recursive option: #$r"

The secret sauce is the '-s' option passed to the interpreter,
which according to the PickAxe indicates, "Any command-line switches
found after the program filename, but before any filename arguments
or before a --, are removed from ARGV and set to a global variable
named for the switch."

It's nice to have that for very short scripts, but for about 50 LOC you can paste in an options parser that permits --foo style options, -xyz as an alias for "-x -y -z", option arguments, argument conversion procs and defaults, "-x123" as an alias for "-x 123", and even a way to interpret "-v -v -v" as thrice verbose. One thing you can't have is _optional_ arguments to options (e.g. an option that takes 0 or 1 arguments).

http://redshift.sourceforge.net/argos.rb

···

--
       vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407

Hi,

At Fri, 7 Sep 2007 00:30:05 +0900,
Bil Kleb wrote in [ruby-talk:267895]:

I know, I'm slow, but I finally figured out the minimalistic
command line options parsing that zenspider et al use in utilities
like flog and sow (the gem skeleton generator that comes with Hoe).

and mkconfig.rb and win32/{mkexports,resource}.rb too.

Consider, for example,

  #!/usr/bin/env ruby -s

Multiple words in shebang line may not work as you expect.

···

--
Nobu Nakada

I talk about this some in the summary for this quiz as well:

http://www.rubyquiz.com/quiz133.html

James Edward Gray II

···

On Sep 6, 2007, at 10:30 AM, Bil Kleb wrote:

Hi,

I know, I'm slow, but I finally figured out the minimalistic
command line options parsing that zenspider et al use in utilities
like flog and sow (the gem skeleton generator that comes with Hoe).

Consider, for example,

#!/usr/bin/env ruby -s

$r ||= false

if defined? $h then
  puts "usage: #{File.basename $0}"
  puts " -h this usage message"
  puts " -r recursive"
end

puts "Recursive option: #$r"

The secret sauce is the '-s' option passed to the interpreter,
which according to the PickAxe indicates, "Any command-line switches
found after the program filename, but before any filename arguments
or before a --, are removed from ARGV and set to a global variable
named for the switch."

A really nice tool I stumbled on while e-stalking Ara Howard (hehe sorry) was his main library (gem install main). He's got some example code of it on his site, and it makes options really really easy!

Ari
-------------------------------------------|
Nietzsche is my copilot

···

On Sep 6, 2007, at 11:55 AM, Joel VanderWerf wrote:

It's nice to have that for very short scripts, but for about 50 LOC you can paste in an options parser that permits --foo style options, -xyz as an alias for "-x -y -z", option arguments, argument conversion procs and defaults, "-x123" as an alias for "-x 123", and even a way to interpret "-v -v -v" as thrice verbose. One thing you can't have is _optional_ arguments to options (e.g. an option that takes 0 or 1 arguments).

Ari Brown wrote:

It's nice to have that for very short scripts, but for about 50 LOC you can paste in an options parser that permits --foo style options, -xyz as an alias for "-x -y -z", option arguments, argument conversion procs and defaults, "-x123" as an alias for "-x 123", and even a way to interpret "-v -v -v" as thrice verbose. One thing you can't have is _optional_ arguments to options (e.g. an option that takes 0 or 1 arguments).

A really nice tool I stumbled on while e-stalking Ara Howard (hehe sorry) was his main library (gem install main). He's got some example code of it on his site, and it makes options really really easy!

Just took a look at it... very powerful. It handles arguments (things without -- or -) as well as options. It's also fairly complex, and not the sort of thing you paste into a small script (almost 2000 lines).

Main looks like more of a complete framework for CLI (possibly like the commandline gem--has anyone compared these two?). By contrast, argos does just one thing: turn an arg string into a hash, based on a spec.

···

On Sep 6, 2007, at 11:55 AM, Joel VanderWerf wrote:

--
       vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407