An LFE Command Line Options & Tool Builder
Introduction ↟
lcli (pronounced "Elk-ly") is a library for creating command line tools through support of parsing commands, options (flags), and arguments (non-flag parameters). Regular options parsing is done using the Erlang getopt community library. lcli manages the handling of everything else. Two excellet libraries have served as inspiration, from two different programming languages: Rust's clap and Go's kong (with the former having a bigger influence).
Example Usage ↟
A simple script below demonstrates lcli's wrappage of the Erlang getopt library:
#!/usr/bin/env lfe
(include-lib "lcli/include/records.lfe")
(defun options ()
'(#m(type option long "help" help "Display help text")
#m(type option long "host" short #\h val-type string default "localhost"
help "Database server host")
#m(type option long "port" short #\p val-type integer
help "Database server port")
#m(type option long "dbname" val-type string default "users"
help "Database name")
#m(type option name xml short #\x help "Output data in XML")
#m(type option long "verbose" short #\v val-type integer help "Verbosity level")
#m(type option long "output" short #\o val-type string help "Output file")))
(defun main ()
(case (lcli:parse (options))
((match-parsed app a commands c options os args as)
(lfe_io:format "App: ~p~nCommands: ~p~nOptions: ~p~nArgs: ~p~n"
(list a c os as)))))
'ok)
(main)For a more thorough checking of parse results, see ./examples/fake-db.lfe.
Test run:
$ ./examples/db.lfe -x --port 5099 --dbname webapp -o output.dump arg1 arg2Output:
App: "./examples/fake-db.lfe"
Commands: ()
Options: #M(dbname "webapp" host "localhost" output "output.dump"
port 5099 xml true)
Args: ("arg1" "arg2")With these components parsed, a script writter or CLI tool developer has all the information needed to override configuration with options provided by a user.
Usage text is generated through a combination of lcli templates and formatting functions as well as utility functions provided by the getopt library:
$ ./examples/db.lfe --helpOutput:
NAME
./examples/fake-db.lfe
SYNOPSIS
./examples/fake-db.lfe [--help] [-h [<host>]] [-p <port>]
[--dbname [<dbname>]] [-x] [-v <verbose>]
[-o <output>]
OPTIONS
--help Display help text
-h, --host Database server host [default: localhost]
-p, --port Database server port
--dbname Database name [default: users]
-x Output data in XML
-v, --verbose Verbosity level
-o, --output Output file
Documentation ↟
Project documentation is here.
License ↟
Copyright © 2016-2023 Duncan McGreggor
Distributed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.