Challenge: Implement CLI interface like that?

Re:Challenge: Implement CLI interface like that? by smoyer on Sunday June 17, 2012 @07:45AM (#4122730)

Docopt looks like a useful library, but I'd be interested to see how intelligent the "help" parsing is when faced with slight variations in the format.

Using Commons-CLI in Java actually goes the opposite direction and if can be reasonably terse (one line per parameter or option) but it's also got to be wrapped in a class and have the rest of the Java boilerplate (a main method to execute, etc).

Perhaps I'll try it on my next NodeJS project.

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Re:Challenge: Implement CLI interface like that? by halst on Sunday June 17, 2012 @08:17AM (#4122798)

When the DSL (http://docopt.org/) was designed, the main goal was just to formalise that pattern-language used for decades in man pages and `--help` screens. So variations that are conventional (such as `UPPER-CASE` for arguments or `<angular-brackets>` for arguments) are supported.

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Re:Challenge: Implement CLI interface like that? by halst on Sunday June 17, 2012 @07:53AM (#4122749)

docopt is even more terse than 1 line per argument/option/command.

Take an example:

    Usage: quick_example.py tcp <host> <port> [--timeout=<seconds>]
           quick_example.py serial <port> [--baud=9600] [--timeout=<seconds>]
           quick_example.py -h | --help | --version

2 commands, 3 arguments, 5 options: in only 3 lines of DSL.

Take a look at more examples: https://github.com/docopt/docopt/tree/master/examples

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