YACLP: A C# repository from caseymarcallen

#YACLP ##Yet Another Command-Line Parser

It's on NuGet:

Install-Package YACLP

Why another one?

Because there were a bunch out there but all of them focused more on the parsing than on being quick and easy to call.

I want my command-line parser to not only parse arguments (which it does, but isn't very flexible about) but to automatically generate a usage message so that I don't have to.

##Simple Usage

var options = DefaultParser.ParseOrExitWithUsageMessage<MyCommandLineParameters>(args);

##Recommendations I'd recommend using an IConfiguration or similar interface so that anything that depends on it doesn't need to know about command-line parameters.

Our main program would look like this:

public class Program
{
    private static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var configuration = DefaultParser.ParseOrExitWithUsageMessage<CommandLineParameters>(args);

        new Greeter(configuration).SayHello();
    }
}

... and our Greeter like this:

public class Greeter
{
    private readonly IConfiguration _configuration;

    public Greeter(IConfiguration configuration)
    {
        _configuration = configuration;
    }

    public void SayHello()
    {
        var message = string.IsNullOrEmpty(_configuration.Surname)
                          ? string.Format("Hi, {0}!", _configuration.FirstName)
                          : string.Format("Hello, Mr/Ms {0}", _configuration.Surname);

        Console.WriteLine(message);
    }
}

Note that our Greeter takes a dependency on an IConfiguration, which looks like this:

public interface IConfiguration
{
    string FirstName { get; set; }
    string Surname { get; set; }
}

... and that IConfiguration interface is implemented by our CommandLineParameters class:

public class CommandLineParameters : IConfiguration
{
    [ParameterDescription("The first name of the person using the program.")]
    public string FirstName { get; set; }

    [ParameterIsOptional]
    [ParameterDefault("Smith")]
    [ParameterDescription("The last name of the person using the program.")]
    public string Surname { get; set; }
}

The key point here is that our Greeter knows absolutely nothing about command-line parameters as everything is segregated using the IConfiguration interface.

caseymarcallen/YACLP