Combine valued/value-less flags

[mrak]

suppose you have two options (out of many)

-d, --data          supply a data file to load
-m, --mute          do not print to the console

Currently, you have to do this:

program -d data.file -m
or
program -m -d data.file

Could you make it possible to combine several value-less options with a single valued option?

program -dm data.file

I've used and written command line parsers for other language platforms that do this. I've found your library superior to all others I've tried on .NET except for this one aspect.

Keep up the good work!

[gsscoder]

Hi @mrak,
very glad you like the library. Also if a bit off-topic, I take the opportunity to let you know that a I'm about to release a version 2.0 (with new interesting features: like more terse and powerful attribute syntax).

I'm not sure to have understood the question.

Actually you can group options using short name, as long as the last option accept a value.

So if '-d' needs a value and '-m' is a boolean (or a switch if you prefer); you should invoke your app in this way:

program -md data.file

Regards, Giacomo

P.S.: for news on this project, you can follow me on twitter (@gsscoder)

[mrak]

Yes, you have described my question correctly. I may still be using an older version by mistake.

I'll close this issue.

[gsscoder]

No worries, thanks for using this library. :)

[mrak]

I realized what my problem was. Given -d takes an argument and -m is a switch, I was trying to do:

program -dm data.file

Which was passing m as the parameter to -d. This, however, works fine:

program -md data.file

Decided to follow-up in case others were getting this behavior, too.

[gsscoder]

Hi, @mrak.

This is the standard and correct behavior.

In both old and new version 2.0. The second syntax you reported is the correct one.

There's no reason to allow syntax #1 or you can report some sample popular cmdline util?

Best regards, Giacomo

[mrak]

The coffee-script coffee command will take both 1 and 2.

-e evaluates a string, whereas -b is a switch to prevent wrapping the script with a top-level (function() {...})()

> coffee -be "console.log for i in [0..10]"
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

> coffee -eb "console.log for i in [0..10]"
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

I normally wouldn't have noticed, but I'm currently porting a node.js project to Mono/.NET and was getting inconsistent behavior.

I think I had gotten used to the idea that if only one letter within -abc takes an argument then the order didn't matter.

[gsscoder]

Ok, undestand.

Others opinion are wellcome.

My personal one is that it could lead to to a more complex tokenizer, without a significant expressibity gain.

R., Giacomo

[nemec]

I'm with you, Giacomo. The way I see it, there are two rules here that may be optionally combined:

-abc
-avalue

As the documentation states, -abc is functionally equivalent to -a -b -c. Therefore, since -c -b -a myvalue isn't valid, -cbamyvalue shouldn't be valid either.

[gsscoder]

@nemec, perfect, thanks for opinion.