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/
See also
For a fancier take on the same general idea, see Didier Verna's CLON:
http://www.lrde.epita.fr/~didier/software/lisp/clon.php
CLON has much more features than this library, but is much more complex and slighly less portable.
- Author
- Francois-Rene Rideau
- Maintainer
- Francois-Rene Rideau
- License
- MIT