s0nspark-choice

= Welcome to Choice

Choice is a small library for defining and parsing command line options. It works awesomely with Highline[http://highline.rubyforge.org/] or other command line interface libraries.

Choice was written by Chris Wanstrath as an exercise in test driving development of a DSL. This project is still an infant: bugs are expected and tattling on them is appreciated.

Installing is easy, with RubyGems. Give it a shot: $ gem install choice

If you are lost, you can find Choice at http://choice.rubyforge.org or http://rubyforge.org/projects/choice/. E-mail inquiries can be directed to mailto:chris[at]ozmm[dot]org.

Of course, Choice is licensed under the MIT License, which you can find included in the LICENSE file or by surfing your World Wide Web browser of choice towards http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php.

== Using Choice

An +examples+ directory is included with Choice, in which some contrived Ruby programs utilizing the library have been placed. Here's a snippet:

=== ftpd.rb

require 'choice'

PROGRAM_VERSION = 4

Choice.options do header '' header 'Specific options:'

option :host do
  short '-h'
  long '--host=HOST'
  desc 'The hostname or ip of the host to bind to (default 127.0.0.1)'
  default '127.0.0.1'
end

option :port do
  short '-p'
  long '--port=PORT'
  desc 'The port to listen on (default 21)'
  cast Integer
  default 21
end

separator ''
separator 'Common options: '

option :help do
  long '--help'
  desc 'Show this message'
end

option :version do
  short '-v'
  long '--version'
  desc 'Show version'
  action do
    puts "ftpd.rb FTP server v#{PROGRAM_VERSION}"
    exit      
  end
end

end

puts 'port: ' + Choice.choices[:port]

Notice the last line. For free, you will be given a Choice.choices hash which contain, at runtime, the options found and their values.

Because we gave option :port a default of 21, Choice.choices[:port] should be 21 if we run ftpd.rb with no options.
Let's see.

$ ruby ftpd.rb port: 21

Cool. On our system, port 21 is reserved. Let's use another port.

$ ruby ftpd.rb -p 2100 port: 2100

Alright. And, of course, there is the hard way of doing things.

$ ruby ftpd.rb --port=2100 port: 2100

That :version option looks pretty interesting, huh? I wonder what it does...

$ ruby ftpd.rb -v ftpd.rb FTP server v4

That's not all, though. We also get a --help option for free.

$ ruby ftpd.rb --help Usage: ftpd.rb [-hpv]

Specific options: -h, --host=HOST The hostname or ip of the host to bind to (default 127.0.0.1) -p, --port=PORT The port to listen on (default 21)

Common options: --help Show this message -v, --version Show version

== The Choice.choices hash

For better or worse, the Choice.choices hash is a bit lazy. It does not care how you access it. Using the above example, assume we have a :port option and we replace the last line of our program with the following three lines:

puts 'port: ' + Choice.choices[:port] puts 'port: ' + Choice.choices['port'] puts 'port: ' + Choice.choices.port

Now, run it.

$ ftpd.rb -p 2100 port: 2100 port: 2100 port: 2100

Lazy, huh?

Keep in mind that your option's key in the Choice.choices hash is defined by the first parameter passed to option statement. This is perfectly legit, albeit somewhat confusing:

option :name do short '-h' long '--handle=NAME' desc "Your handle." end

You can access this option by using Choice.choices[:name], not :handle.

== Option options

Obviously, Choice revolves around the option statement, which receives a block. Here are all the, er, options +option+ accepts. None of them are required but +short+ or +long+ must be present for Choice to know what to do.

Options must be defined in the context of a Choice.options block, as seen above. This context is assumed for the following explanations.

For the quick learners, here's the list:

• short
• long
• default
• desc
• cast
• valid (takes array)
• validate (takes regex)
• filter (takes a block)
• action (ditto)

You can define these within your option in any order which pleases you.

=== short

Defines the short switch for an option. Expected to be a dash and a single character.

short '-s'

=== long

Defines the long switch for an option. Expected to be a double dash followed by a string, an equal sign (or a space), and another string.

There are two variants: longs where a parameter is required and longs where a parameter is optional, in which case the value will be +true+ if the option is present.

Optional: long '--debug=[LEVEL]'

Assuming our program defines Choices and ends with this line: puts 'debug: ' + Choice.choices[:debug]

we can do this:

$ ruby ftpd.rb --debug debug: true

$ ruby ftpd.rb --debug=1 debug: 1

$ ruby ftpd.rb --debug 1 debug: 1

Required: long '--debug=LEVEL'

Assuming the same as above:

$ ruby ftpd.rb --debug 1 debug: 1

$ ruby ftpd.rb --debug

=== long as array

Often you may wish to allow users the ability to pass in multiple arguments and have them all combined into an array. You can accomplish this by defining a +long+ and setting the caps-argument to *ARG. Like this:

long '--suit *SUITS'

Choice.choices.suits will now return an array. Here's an example of usage:

$ ruby --suit hearts clubs suit: ['hearts', 'clubs']

Check out examples/gamble.rb for more information on this cool feature.

=== default

You can define a default value for your option, if you'd like. If the option is not present in the argument list, the default will be returned when trying to access that element of the Choice.choices hash.

As with the above, assume our program prints Choice.choices[:debug]:

default 'info'

If we don't pass in --debug, the :debug element of our hash will be 'info.'

$ ftpd.rb debug: info

$ ftpd.rb --debug warn debug: warn

=== desc

The description of this option. Fairly straightforward, with one little trick: multiple +desc+ statements in a single option will be considered new desc lines.
The desc lines will be printed in the order they are defined. Like this:

desc "Your hostname." desc "(default 'localhost')"

A snippet from your --help might then look like this:

-h, --host=HOST Your hostname. (default 127.0.0.1)

=== cast

By default, all members of the Choice.choices hash are strings. If you want something different, like an Integer for a port number, you can use the +cast+ statement.

cast Integer

Currently support +cast+ options:

• Integer
• String
• Float
• Symbol

We'll probably add Date, Time, and DateTime in the future, if people want them.

=== valid

Giving +valid+ an array creates a whitelist of acceptable arguments.

valid %w[clubs hearts spades diamonds]

If our option is passed anything other than one of the four card suits, the help screen will be printed. It might be a good idea to include acceptable arguments in your option's "desc" value.

$ ruby gamble.rb -s clubs suit: clubs

$ ruby gamble.rb -s joker

=== validate

The +validate+ statement accepts a regular expression which it will test against the value passed. If the test fails, the --help screen will be printed. I love ports, so let's stick with that example:

validate /^\d+$/

Of course, 2100 matches this:

$ ruby ftpd.rb -p 2100 port: 2100

I like dogs. I wish dogs could be ports. Alas, Choice knows better (once I've told it so):

$ ruby ftpd.rb -p labradoodle

=== filter

The +filter+ statement lets you play with a value before it goes into the Choice.choices hash. If you use +cast+, this will occur post-casting.

In this program we're defining a :name option and saying we don't want any crazy characters in it, then printing that element of the Choice.choices+ hash:

filter do |value| value = value.gsub(/[^\w]/, '') end

Now:

$ ruby ftpd.rb --name=c.hr.is name: chris

You can probably think of better uses.

=== action

A block passed to the +action+ statement will be run if that particular option is passed. See the --version example earlier.

=== required options

You can specify an option as being required by passing :required => true to the option definition. Choice will then print the help screen if this option is not present. Please let your dear users know which options are required.

For example:

option :card, :required => true do short '-c' long '--card CARD' desc "The card you wish to gamble on. Required. Only one, please." end

Then:

$ ruby gamble.rb <help screen, -c or --card wasn't passed>

== Other options

These statements are purely aesthetic, used to help make your --help screen a little more digestible.

Passing an empty string to any of these options will print a newline.

=== banner

The banner is the first line printed when your program is called with --help. By default, it will be something like this, based on the options defined:

Usage: ftpd.rb [-hpv]

You can pass any string to the +banner+ statement to override what prints. This might be useful if you're into ascii art.

banner "Usage: ftpd.rb"

=== header

The header is what shows up after the banner but before your option definitions are printed. Each header call is a newline. Check out the example above.

header "ftp is a harsh and unforgiving protocol."

=== separator

As in the example above, you can put separators between options to help display the logical groupings of your options. Or whatever.

separator "----"

To get a blank line, rock an empty string:

separator ''

=== footer

The footer is displayed after all your options are displayed. Nothing new here, works like the other options above.

footer "That's all there is to it!"

== Shorthand

Now that you've gone through all the hard stuff, here's the easy stuff: Choice options can be defined with a simple hash if you'd like. Here's an example, from the tests:

Choice.options do header "Tell me about yourself?" header "" options :band => { :short => "-b", :long => "--band=BAND", :cast => String, :desc => "Your favorite band.", :validate => /\w+/ }, :animal => { :short => "-a", :long => "--animal=ANIMAL", :cast => String, :desc => "Your favorite animal." }

 footer ""
 footer "--help This message"

end

How's that tickle you? Real nice.

== It looks like poetry

That's it. Not much, I know. Maybe this will make handling your command line options a bit easier. You can always use the option parser in the standard Ruby library, but DSLs are just so cool. As one of my non-programmer friends said of a Ruby DSL: "It looks like poetry."

== It's totally broken

Okay, I knew this would happen. Do me a favor, if you have time: run +rake+ from the Choice directory and send me the output (mailto:chris[at]ozmm[dot]org).
This'll run the unit tests. Also, if you would, send me a bit of information on your platform. Choice was tested on OS X and RHEL with a 2.4 kernel but who knows. Thanks a lot.

== Thanks to

For bug reports, patches, and ideas I'd be honored to thank the following:

• Justin Bailey
• Alexis Li