Released version 1.9.0

Requirements

• PHP 8.2 or higher is now required

New Features

Fluent API for Parser

New methods for defining options programmatically:

• addSwitch() - adds a flag without value (e.g. --verbose)
• addOption() - adds an option with value (e.g. --format json)
• addArgument() - adds a positional argument
• addFromHelp() - extracts options from formatted help text

$parser = (new Parser)
    ->addSwitch('--verbose', '-v', description: 'Enable verbose mode')
    ->addOption('--format', '-f', optionalValue: true, fallback: 'json')
    ->addArgument('file');

Early-Exit Parsing with parseOnly()

New method for parsing only specific options without validation:

// Check --help before full validation
if ($parser->parseOnly(['--help'])['--help']) {
    $parser->help();
    exit;
}

$args = $parser->parse();  // full parsing with validation

Useful for --help and --version options that should work without providing required arguments.

Internal Changes

• Parser refactored to use Option objects internally instead of arrays
• Enum validation now runs before normalizer (BC break)
• Used #[Deprecated] attribute for deprecated constants