nomnom

nomnom

nomnom is an option parser for node and CommonJS. It noms your args and gives them back to you in a hash.

var options = require("nomnom")
  .opts({
    version: {
      string: '--version',
      help: 'print version and exit',
      callback: function() {
        return "version 1.2.4";
      }
    },
    debug: {
      string: '-d, --debug',
      help: 'Print debugging info'
    },
    config: {
      string: '-c PATH, --config=PATH',
      default: 'config.json',
      help: 'JSON file with tests to run'
    }
  })
  .parseArgs();

if(options.debug)
  // do stuff

You don't have to specify anything if you don't want to:

var options = require("nomnom").parseArgs();

var url = options[0]; // get the first positional arg
var debug = options.debug // see if --debug was specified
var verbose = options.v // see if -v was specified

Install

for node.js and npm:

npm install nomnom

Commands

Nomnom supports command-based interfaces, e.g. with git: git add -p and git rebase -i where add and rebase are the commands:

var parser = nomnom.opts({
  debug: {
    string: '-d, --debug',
    help: 'print debugging info'
  }
});

parser.command('sanity')
  .opts({
    filename: {
      position: 1,
      help: 'test file to run'
    },
    config: {
      string: '-c FILE, --config=FILE',
      default: 'config.json',
      help: 'json file with tests to run'
    }
  })
  .callback(function(options) {
    runSanity(options.filename);
  })
  .help("run the sanity tests")

parser.command('browser')
  .callback(runBrowser)
  .help("run browser tests");

parser.parseArgs();

More Details

Nomnom supports args like -d, --debug, --no-debug, --file=test.txt, -f test.txt, -xvf, and positionals.

By default it parses node's process.argv. You can also pass in the args:

var options = nomnom.parseArgs(["-xvf", "--atomic=true"])

Values are JSON parsed, so --debug=true --count=3 --file=log.txt would give you:

{
  "debug": true,
  "count": 3,
  "file": "log.txt"
}

positional args

All parsed arguments that don't fit the -a or --atomic format and aren't attached to an option are positional and can be matched on via the position:

var options = nomnom.opts({
  filename: {
    position: 0,
    help: 'file to edit'
  }
}).parseArgs();

console.log(options.filename);

callbacks

You can provide a callback that will be executed as soon as the arg is encountered. If the callback returns a string it will print the string and exit:

var opts = {
  version: {
    string: '--version',
    callback: function() {
      return "version 1.2.4";
    }
  },
  date: {
    string: '-d YYYY-MM-DD, --date=YYYY-MM-DD',
    callback: function(date) {
      if(!(/^\d{4}\-\d\d\-\d\d$/).test(date))
        return "date must be in format yyyy-mm-dd";
    }
  }
}

var options = nomnom.opts(opts).parseArgs();

printing usage

Nomnom prints out a usage message if --help or -h is an argument. You can override the usage string with usage:

nomnom.usage("node test.js <filename> --debug");

override the printing function with printFunc:

nomnom.printFunc(function(usage) {
  console.log(usage);
});

and add a line to the usage with help:

nomnom.help("runtests.js will run all the tests in the current directory");

Usage for these options in test.js:

var options = nomnom.opts({
  command: {
    position: 0,
    help: "either 'test', 'run', or 'xpi'" 
  },
  config: {
    string: '-c FILE, --config=FILE',
    help: 'json file with tests to run',
  },
  debug: {
    string: '-d, --debug',
    help: 'use debug mode'
  }
}).parseArgs();

...would look like this:

Usage: node test.js <command> [options]

<command>		either 'test', 'run', or 'xpi'

options:
-c FILE, --config=FILE		json file with tests to run
-d, --debug		use debug mode

Nomnom can't detect the alias used to run your script. You can use the scriptName option to print the correct name instead of e.g. node test.js:

nomnom.scriptName("runtests");