lokinet/vendor/cxxopts/README.md
2019-08-12 21:44:10 +00:00

149 lines
4.8 KiB
Markdown

[![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/jarro2783/cxxopts.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/jarro2783/cxxopts)
# Release versions
Note that `master` is generally a work in progress, and you probably want to use a
tagged release version.
# Quick start
This is a lightweight C++ option parser library, supporting the standard GNU
style syntax for options.
Options can be given as:
--long
--long=argument
--long argument
-a
-ab
-abc argument
where c takes an argument, but a and b do not.
Additionally, anything after `--` will be parsed as a positional argument.
## Basics
#include <cxxopts.hpp>
Create a cxxopts::Options instance.
cxxopts::Options options("MyProgram", "One line description of MyProgram");
Then use `add_options`.
options.add_options()
("d,debug", "Enable debugging")
("f,file", "File name", cxxopts::value<std::string>())
;
Options are declared with a long and an optional short option. A description
must be provided. The third argument is the value, if omitted it is boolean.
Any type can be given as long as it can be parsed, with operator>>.
To parse the command line do:
auto result = options.parse(argc, argv);
To retrieve an option use `result.count("option")` to get the number of times
it appeared, and
result["opt"].as<type>()
to get its value. If "opt" doesn't exist, or isn't of the right type, then an
exception will be thrown.
Note that the result of `options.parse` should only be used as long as the
`options` object that created it is in scope.
## Exceptions
Exceptional situations throw C++ exceptions. There are two types of
exceptions: errors defining the options, and errors when parsing a list of
arguments. All exceptions derive from `cxxopts::OptionException`. Errors
defining options derive from `cxxopts::OptionSpecException` and errors
parsing arguments derive from `cxxopts::OptionParseException`.
All exceptions define a `what()` function to get a printable string
explaining the error.
## Help groups
Options can be placed into groups for the purposes of displaying help messages.
To place options in a group, pass the group as a string to `add_options`. Then,
when displaying the help, pass the groups that you would like displayed as a
vector to the `help` function.
## Positional Arguments
Positional arguments can be optionally parsed into one or more options.
To set up positional arguments, call
options.parse_positional({"first", "second", "last"})
where "last" should be the name of an option with a container type, and the
others should have a single value.
## Default and implicit values
An option can be declared with a default or an implicit value, or both.
A default value is the value that an option takes when it is not specified
on the command line. The following specifies a default value for an option:
cxxopts::value<std::string>()->default_value("value")
An implicit value is the value that an option takes when it is given on the
command line without an argument. The following specifies an implicit value:
cxxopts::value<std::string>()->implicit_value("implicit")
If an option had both, then not specifying it would give the value `"value"`,
writing it on the command line as `--option` would give the value `"implicit"`,
and writing `--option=another` would give it the value `"another"`.
Note that the default and implicit value is always stored as a string,
regardless of the type that you want to store it in. It will be parsed as
though it was given on the command line.
## Boolean values
Boolean options have a default implicit value of `"true"`, which can be
overridden. The effect is that writing `-o` by itself will set option `o` to
`true`. However, they can also be written with various strings using `=value`.
There is no way to disambiguate positional arguments from the value following
a boolean, so we have chosen that they will be positional arguments, and
therefore, `-o false` does not work.
## `std::vector<T>` values
Parsing of list of values in form of an `std::vector<T>` is also supported, as long as `T`
can be parsed. To separate single values in a list the definition `CXXOPTS_VECTOR_DELIMITER`
is used, which is ',' by default. Ensure that you use no whitespaces between values because
those would be interpreted as the next command line option. Example for a command line option
that can be parsed as a `std::vector<double>`:
~~~
--my_list=1,-2.1,3,4.5
~~~
## Custom help
The string after the program name on the first line of the help can be
completely replaced by calling `options.custom_help`. Note that you might
also want to override the positional help by calling `options.positional_help`.
# Linking
This is a header only library.
# Requirements
The only build requirement is a C++ compiler that supports C++11 regular
expressions. For example GCC >= 4.9 or clang with libc++.
# TODO list
* Allow unrecognised options.