command-line-arguments

A library for parsing command-line arguments.

Use it in conjunction with asdf:program-op or cl-launch for portable processing of command-line arguments.

Usage

This library is woefully under-documented. See the examples below, and read the source code for details. Here is what a prototypical use looks like:

(defparameter +command-line-spec+
  '(((#\b) :type boolean :optional t :documentation "what optional -b flag does")
    (("check" #\c) :type string :optional t :documentation "a --check or -c flag that takes a string")
    (("verbose") :type boolean :optional t :documentation "only a verbose --verbose is accepted")
    (("warn" "warning" #\w) :type boolean :optional t :documentation "multiple spellings possible")
    (("help" #\h #\?) :type boolean :optional t :documentation "--help -h -?, good practice to have")
    (("version" #\V) :type boolean :optional t :documentation "--version or -V, you get the idea")))

;; for the positional arguments, see below :positional-arity and :rest-arity
(defun my-program-function (arg1 arg2 rest-args &key b check verbose warn help version)
   (when help (show-option-help +command-line-spec+ :sort-names t) (uiop:quit))
   (when version (show-version) (uiop:quit))
   ...)

(defun main (args)
  (handle-command-line
    ;; the spec as above, or prepared with prepare-command-line-options-specification
    +command-line-spec+
    ;; the function to call with the arguments as parsed
    'my-program-function
    ;; the arguments to parse
    :command-line args
    ;; the program name to use in case of an error message
    :name "my-program"
    ;; the number of mandatory positional arguments for this command (default: 0)
    :positional-arity 2
    ;; What to do with the rest of the positional arguments.
    ;; T means pass the list of the rest of the command-line-arguments as one lisp argument.
    ;; NIL means ignore it. A keyword means pass this rest as a keyword argument.
    :rest-arity t))

Examples

For very simple examples of actual uses, see my tthsum clone in Lisp or my workout-timer.

For a much more elaborate use, see xcvb ? unhappily, XCVB has gone mostly unmaintained since 2012, so the example might not be usefully runnable.

Homepage

http://common-lisp.net/project/qitab/

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