v-i-s-h / Runner.jl

Provides `@runit` macro for running scripts with commandline arguments from REPL

Runner.jl

TL;DR Provides @runit macro for running scripts with commandline arguments from REPL.

Instead of

$julia script.jl arg1 arg2 arg3

use, from REPL

julia> @runit "script.jl arg1 arg2 arg3"

Advantage: Avoid the delay in package load times during development. Load it once using REPL and continue using it with commandline arguments.

Why?

This packages tries to solve the problem of running scripts with commandline arguments from REPL. Often we write scripts that can be called from commandline with arguments like

$julia script.jl arg1 arg2 arg3

However, during development, this may become cumbersome. If we use some packages which has long load times, running the script as above will create long delays before actually executing the code. A faster approach during development is to start a REPL and use

julia> include('script.jl')

But, in this case, we will not be able to provide command line arguments. Work around is to define a function which takes in arguments and manually calling it. Not neat!

This package exists to overcome this difficulty. It provide a macro @runit which will let you run script from REPL with commandline arguments.

How?

Simple use case

If you have a script like

# hello.jl
# Simple script for demo. Accesses ARGS
println("Hello $(ARGS[1])!")

From commadline, we can run this as

$julia hello.jl Julia

To run this from REPL, use

julia> @runit hello.jl Julia

Use with ArgParse

# Script hello2.jl
using ArgParse

parser = ArgParseSettings()
@add_arg_table! parser begin
    "name"
	    help = "Name to greet"
  	    arg_type = String
    "--greet"
        help = "Greeting sting"
        arg_type = String
        default = "Hello"
end

parsed_args = parse_args(parser)

println(parsed_args["greet"], " ", parsed_args["name"], "!")

From commandline

$julia hello2.jl Julia
Hello Julia!

$julia hello2.jl Julia --greet Namaste
Namaste Julia!

From REPL

julia> @runit "hello2.jl Julia"
Hello Julia!

julia> @runit "hello2.jl Julia --greet Namaste"
Namaste Julia!