Using catch_all with required: true

[DannyBen]

Hi, @DannyBen!

I'm just wondering how you would recommenced using the catch_all approach when the additional arguments are required but of unknown length? I see that providing required: true to the catch_all hash changes nothing, which makes sense.

Thanks for the great tool,

• Jakob

Originally posted by @JakobGM in #70 (comment)

[DannyBen]

Alright. So you are right in observing that catch_all always means "zero or more additional arguments". I haven't considered a situation where it might need to be required.

For now, you can work around it like so:

# src/bashly.yml
name: update
help: Update one or more package
version: 0.1.0
catch_all: packages

# src/root_command.sh
packages=${other_args[*]}
count=${#other_args[@]}

if [[ $count -eq 0 ]]; then
  echo "Please provide at least one package"
  exit 1

else
  echo "updaging $count packages"

  for package in $packages; do
    echo "$package"
  done
fi

Of course, this is less ideal since the usage text implies that these extra params (PACKAGES in our case), is optional:

Usage:
  update [PACKAGES...]

Let me think about it a little, perhaps it can be easy to implement it in the hash notation of the catch_all.

Keep this issue open, I will post again if I can implement it without introducing undesired complexity.

[DannyBen]

Found another option that might be suitable:

# src/bashly.yml
name: update
help: Update one or more package
version: 0.1.0
catch_all: true

args:
- name: package
  help: Package name
  required: true

# src/root_command.sh
packages=(${args[package]} ${other_args[*]})
count=${#packages[@]}

echo "updaging $count packages"

for package in ${packages[@]}; do
  echo "$package"
done

# output
$ ./update -h
update - Update one or more package

Usage:
  update PACKAGE [...]
...

With this we create one required argument, one nameless catch_all, so the usage text looks reasonable, and we merge them in the code.

I will still look for a way to support required catch_all, but it seems to be more involved than I hoped.

[DannyBen]

So, I have implemented it. Using required: true in the hash form of the catch_all directive will now work as expected.

1. The catch-all-advanced example was updated accordingly
2. Version 0.6.4 was released to rubygems and dockerhub
3. The documentation was updated

[DannyBen]

@JakobGM - can I close this?