Customizable usage message / operand specification

[morozov]

For a CLI application with fixed set of operands it'd be useful if it was possible to describe them explicitly in "usage" message. I.e. instead of

Usage: copy [options] [operands]
Options:
  --overwrite             Overwrite existing file

I'd like to have a more meaningful message like

Usage: copy [options] <from> <to> [<optional-operand>]
Options:
  --overwrite             Overwrite existing file

In fact, this example brings the idea of operands specification alongside with the one for options. Like options, operands may also have names, be mandatory or optional and have default values.

[ulrichsg]

Thanks for your suggestion. It's definitely something I'll consider for a future release.

[tflori]

with #75 you will be able to define from and to very easy:

$getopt = new Getopt();
$getopt->addOperand(new Operand('from'));
$getopt->addOperand(new Operand('to'));

echo $getopt->getHelpText();

If you want to try it by yourself you can install 3.0.x-dev or dev-feature-operandSpecification

[morozov]

@tflori thank you. I'm currently not working on the project I was asking this for (it's been 3½ years since then). I'll give it a try once I start working on something similar.