CLASP.Ruby

Command-Line Argument Sorting and Parsing for Ruby

Gem Version

Installation & usage

Install using gem install clasp-ruby or add it to your Gemfile.

Description

CLASP stands for C\ommand-L\ine A\rgument S\orting and P\arsing. The first \CLASP library was a C library with a C++ wrapper. There have been several implementations in other languages. CLASP.Ruby is the Ruby version.

All \CLASP libraries provide the following facilities to C\ommand L\ine I\nterface (CLI) programs:

Command-line parsing

All CLASP libraries discriminate between three types of command-line arguments:

  • flags are hyphen-prefixed arguments that are either present or absent, and hence have a boolean nature;
  • options are hyphen-prefixed arguments that are given values; and
  • values are non-hyphen-prefixed arguments that represent values.

For example, in the command line

`myprog --all -c --opt1=val1 infile outfile`

there are:

  • two flags, --all and -c;
  • one option called --opt1, which has the value val1; and
  • two values infile and outfile.

Flags and options may have alias. If the alias for --all is -a and the alias for --opt1 is -o then the following command-line is exactly equivalent to the previous one:

`myprog -a -c -o val1 infile outfile`

One-letter flags may be combined. Hence, the following command-line is exactly equivalent to the previous ones:

`myprog -ac -o val1 infile outfile`

Option aliases may specify a value. If the alias -v1 means --opt1=val1 then the following command-line is exactly equivalent to the previous ones:

`myprog -ac -v1 infile outfile`

Option aliases that are one letter may be combined with one-letter flags. If the alias -v means --opt1=val1 then the following command-line is exactly equivalent to the previous ones:

`myprog -acv infile outfile`

UNIX standard arguments confer specific meanings:

  • --help means that the program should show the usage/help information and terminate;
  • --version means that the program should show the version information and terminate;
  • -- means that all subsequent arguments should be treated as values, regardless of any hyphen-prefixes or embedded = signs.

Declarative specification of the flags and options for a CLI

To support such above special processing, \CLASP libraries provide facilities for declarative specification of command-line flags and options, and aliases thereof. For the previous example, the CLASP.Ruby code would look like the following:


# file: cr-example.rb

PROGRAM_VERSION = '0.1.2'

Aliases = [

    CLASP.Flag('--all', alias: '-a', help: 'processes all item types'),
    CLASP.Flag('-c', help: 'count the processed items'),
    CLASP.Option('--opt1', alias: '-o', help: 'an option of some kind', values_range: %w{ val1, val2 }),
    CLASP.Option('--opt1=val1', alias: '-v'),

    # see next section for why these two are here
    CLASP::Flag.Help,
    CLASP::Flag.Version,
]

# assuming the command-line `myprog -acv infile outfile`
Args = CLASP::Arguments.new(ARGV, Aliases)

puts Args.flags.size                # => 2
puts Args.flags[0].name             # => "--all"
puts Args.flags[1].name             # => "-c"

puts Args.options.size              # => 1
puts Args.options[0].name           # => "--opt1"
puts Args.options[0].value          # => "val1"

puts Args.values.size               # => 2
puts Args.values[0]                 # => "infile"
puts Args.values[1]                 # => "outfile"

Utility functions for displaying usage and version information

There are aspects common to all CLI programs, such as responding to --help and --version. All \CLASP libraries provide facilities to assist the programmer: CLASP.Ruby provides the two module methods CLASP.show_usage() and CLASP.show_version(), as shown in the following code extending the example above:


Args.flags.each do |f|

    case f.name
    when CLASP::Flag.Help.name

        CLASP.show_usage(Aliases, exit: 0, values: '<input-file> <output-file>')
    when CLASP::Flag.Version.name

        CLASP.show_version(Aliases, exit: 0, version: PROGRAM_VERSION)
    when '--all'

        # do something appropriate to `--all`

    . . .

Given the command

`./cr-example.rb --help`

then the program will output the following

USAGE: cr-example.rb [ ... flags and options ... ] <input-file> <output-file>

flags/options:

    -a
    --all
        processes all item types

    -c
        count the processed items

    -v --opt1=val1
    -o <value>
    --opt1=<value>
        an option of some kind where <value> one of:
            val1,
            val2

    --help
        shows this help and terminates

    --version
        shows version and terminates

and given the command

`./cr-example.rb --version`

then the program will output the following

cr-example.rb 0.1.2

Where to get help

GitHub Page

Contribution guidelines

Defect reports, feature requests, and pull requests are welcome on https://github.com/synesissoftware/CLASP.Ruby.

CLASP.Ruby is inspired by the C/C++ CLASP library, which is documented in the articles:

CLASP.Ruby is used in the libCLImate.Ruby library.

License

CLASP.Ruby is released under the 3-clause BSD license. See LICENSE for details.