(***********************************************************************) (* *) (* Objective Caml *) (* *) (* Xavier Leroy, projet Cristal, INRIA Rocquencourt *) (* *) (* Copyright 1996 Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et *) (* Automatique. Distributed only by permission. *) (* *) (***********************************************************************) (* $Id$ *) (* Module [Arg]: parsing of command line arguments *) (* This module provides a general mechanism for extracting options and arguments from the command line to the program. *) (* Syntax of command lines: A keyword is a character string starting with a [-]. An option is a keyword alone or followed by an argument. The types of keywords are: [Unit], [Set], [Clear], [String], [Int], [Float], and [Rest]. [Unit], [Set] and [Clear] keywords take no argument. [String], [Int], and [Float] keywords take the following word on the command line as an argument. A [Rest] keyword takes the remaining of the command line as (string) arguments. Arguments not preceded by a keyword are called anonymous arguments. *) (* Examples ([cmd] is assumed to be the command name): - [cmd -flag ](a unit option) - [cmd -int 1 ](an int option with argument [1]) - [cmd -string foobar ](a string option with argument ["foobar"]) - [cmd -float 12.34 ](a float option with argument [12.34]) - [cmd a b c ](three anonymous arguments: ["a"], ["b"], and ["c"]) - [cmd a b -- c d ](two anonymous arguments and a rest option with - [ ] two arguments) *) type spec = | Unit of (unit -> unit) (* Call the function with unit argument *) | Set of bool ref (* Set the reference to true *) | Clear of bool ref (* Set the reference to false *) | String of (string -> unit) (* Call the function with a string argument *) | Int of (int -> unit) (* Call the function with an int argument *) | Float of (float -> unit) (* Call the function with a float argument *) | Rest of (string -> unit) (* Stop interpreting keywords and call the function with each remaining argument *) (* The concrete type describing the behavior associated with a keyword. *) val parse : (string * spec * string) list -> (string -> unit) -> string -> unit (* [Arg.parse speclist anonfun usage_msg] parses the command line. [speclist] is a list of triples [(key, spec, doc)]. [key] is the option keyword, it must start with a ['-'] character. [spec] gives the option type and the function to call when this option is found on the command line. [doc] is a one-line description of this option. [anonfun] is called on anonymous arguments. The functions in [spec] and [anonfun] are called in the same order as their arguments appear on the command line. If an error occurs, [Arg.parse] exits the program, after printing an error message as follows: - The reason for the error: unknown option, invalid or missing argument, etc. - [usage_msg] - The list of options, each followed by the corresponding [doc] string. For the user to be able to specify anonymous arguments starting with a [-], include for example [("-", String anonfun, doc)] in [speclist]. By default, [parse] recognizes a unit option [-help], which will display [usage_msg] and the list of options, and exit the program. You can override this behaviour by specifying your own [-help] option in [speclist]. *) exception Bad of string (* Functions in [spec] or [anonfun] can raise [Arg.Bad] with an error message to reject invalid arguments. *) val usage: (string * spec * string) list -> string -> unit (* [Arg.usage speclist usage_msg] prints an error message including the list of valid options. This is the same message that [Arg.parse] prints in case of error. [speclist] and [usage_msg] are the same as for [Arg.parse]. *) val current: int ref;; (* Position (in [Sys.argv]) of the argument being processed. You can change this value, e.g. to force [Arg.parse] to skip some arguments. *)