Petulant is a command-line parser that can be used when delivering Common Lisp applications under both Windows and Unix, supporting native CLI styles. That means:
- Windows users don't have to learn GNU or POSIX hyphen-based option syntax,
- Unix users don't need to worry about Windows slash-based switches, and
- Developers only need one body of code to support both environments.
As I begin to develop native executable applications for both Windows and Unix-like environment (hat tip to the wonderful Roswell project), I saw a “one size fits all” problem. I looked through several other command line option and argument parsers for CL, and they all seem to expect their users to follow POSIX (or GNU) style command line parsing.
Petulant exists so that developers can deliver applications in Unix and Windows environments, supporting users who don't want to give up the established command-line semantics of their respective systems.
- No need for specifications to process simple sets of options,
- A functional interface to CLI parsing,
- A data interface to CLI parsing, and
- A specification interface to CLI parsing if you like writing those.
- Windows
- Switches:
foo /a /b /c - Switch combination:
foo /a/bc /def - Switch arguments with colon:
foo /file:foo.bar /v/r - Switch arguments without colon:
foo /file foo.bar /v/r - Double slash termination (nonstandard, I know):
foo /a/b // /these are /not options /either
- Switches:
- POSIX
- Short options:
foo -a -b -c arg1 arg2 - Combinations:
foo -a -bc arg1 arg2 - Option arguments:
foo -ab -f file -d2 arg1 arg2 - Historical option arguments:
foo -xvf junk.tar arg1 arg2 - Hysterical option combinations with arguments:
foo -abd2 arg1 arg2
- Short options:
- GNU
- Long options with an equal sign:
foo -ab --input=file --delay=2 arg1 arg2 - Long options without an equal sign:
foo -ab --input file --delay 2 arg1 arg2 - Out-of-order non-option arguments:
foo -ab arg1 -f file arg2 - Double dash termination:
foo -ab -- -these --are -not --options
- Long options with an equal sign:
- As well as
- Case-sensitive and case-insensitive option parsing.
- Option aliasing (allowing one or more words to stand for a given option or switch).
- Mapping options to keywords.
- Abbreviated matching of options and strings (no need to type out an entire long option or switch name), sometimes called partial matching.
Eventually, I'll request getting this package added to Quicklisp, when I feel Petulant is good enough.
- Detecting an alternative SwitChar (switch character) in use under Windows CMD and PowerShell.
- Accessing the actual command line string under Windows. (More details on this in the manual).
I'd welcome the help, if you know how either of those work.
Certainly, there are yet more styles out there that are in wide use (or, were in wide use in the past). I'm not against these. I'm listing them here to be up front about what Petulant does and doesn't do at present. (Most of these would be easy for a client of Petulant to implement on their own in the meantime, with the exception of 3 below).
- Korn shell automatic numeric parsing
- Korn shell option subargument support
-f/+ftoggling--no-foonegation- Auto-parsing option argument types (numeric, strings, booleans, etc)
I will say, however, that often I saw those features being useful in one context, but generally going unused or unnoticed everywhere else. That's why I just haven't gotten around to them. If you need one, feel free to convince me they're a good idea!
On the other hand, pull requests are always welcome, and a much faster way to get them added. (hint, hint) Petulant includes a pretty good set of tests via FiveAM, so it's easy to see if your improvements work out or not.
- Roswell, which inspired my need for Petulant,
- FiveAM, which kept me sane during development,
- Iterate, which is simply a joy to use compared to LOOP's extended forms, and
- Alexandria and Anaphora, which save me from re-inventing wheels.
Petulant is available under the MIT License.
Copyright © 2017 Robert S. Krzaczek
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.