- Written with support for Java6 in mind so 7 and 8 shouldn't be a problem.
- Arguments that takes none, single, multiple and unlimited number of parameters.
- Mandatory and optional arguments.
- Dependencies between arguments, i.e. if entered, an argument may require another argument to be entered too.
- Mutually exclusive arguments.
- Hidden arguments
- Constraint validation
- Same argument not allowed twice
- Guard against unknown arguments.
- Max/min values/lengths for argument parameters.
- Custom "usage" formatting.
- Custom error messages.
- Configuration file integration
- When arguments are not available on the
command line they can be read from a configuration file. An XML-reader is included,
supporting three different modes:
- Matching only node name and reading a primary attribute.
- Matching only node name and reading the 'text value' of the node.
- Matching on node name and reading a primary attribute.
- Matching on node name and attribute name/value, reading a second attribute value.
- Can accept a string argument that specifies which configuration file to load.
- When arguments are not available on the
command line they can be read from a configuration file. An XML-reader is included,
supporting three different modes:
A C++ port is available here: https://github.com/PerMalmberg/CmdParser4Cpp
This example is taken from the test cases. Please see the test cases for more detailed usage.
IParseResult msg = new SystemOutputParseResult();
CmdParser4J p = new CmdParser4J(msg);
p.accept("-argument").asBoolean(1).setMandatory().describedAs("An argument that accept a single boolean parameter");
p.accept("-multi").asString(1, 4).describedAs("An optional argument that accept one to four argument.");
// The name of the argument, or any prefix characters, doesn't really matter, here we use double dash.
p.accept("--otherArgument").withAlias("-o", "-O").asSingleBoolean().describedAs("An optional argument that takes no parameters");
// Arguments with variable parameters are only accepted as the last argument on the commandline.
assertTrue(p.parse("-argument", "true", "-O", "-multi", "parameter1", "parameter2", "parameter3"));
// Verify the number of parameters that can be read for the different arguments.
assertEquals(1, p.getAvailableBooleanParameterCount("--otherArgument"));
assertEquals(3, p.getAvailableStringParameterCount("-multi"));
assertEquals(1, p.getAvailableBooleanParameterCount("-argument"));
// Read the values from the parser.
assertEquals(true, p.getBool("-argument", 0));
assertEquals("parameter1", p.getString("-multi", 0));
assertEquals("parameter2", p.getString("-multi", 1));
assertEquals("parameter3", p.getString("-multi", 2));
assertEquals(null, p.getString("-multi", 4));Printing (customizable) usage text:
IUsageFormatter usage = new SystemOutputUsageFormatter("MyCmdString");
p.getUsage(usage);
System.out.println(usage);which return the following string, based on the above example.
MyCmdString
-argument
An argument that accept a single boolean parameter
-multi <arg1> [... <arg4>]
An optional argument that accept one to four argument.
--otherArgument (-o)
An optional argument that takes no parameters
If CmdParser4J.parse() returns false, you can easily see what went wrong by calling the method getParseResult(), like so:
IParseResult msg = new SystemOutputParseResult();
CmdParser4J p = new CmdParser4J(msg);
p.accept("-argument").asBoolean(1).setMandatory().describedAs("An argument that accept a single boolean parameter");
p.accept("-multi").asString(1, 4).describedAs("An optional argument that accept one to four argument.");
// Missing mandatory argument
assertFalse(p.parse("-multi", "parameter1", "parameter2", "parameter3"));
System.out.println(msg.getParseResult());which yields the following message
The mandatory argument '-argument' is missing