commons-cli/xdocs/usage.xml at de24647b43c9d760208a6af80056416ed9417033 · virtuoushub/commons-cli · GitHub

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<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!--
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  to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
  "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
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  http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
  software distributed under the License is distributed on an
  "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
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-->
<document>

  <properties>
    <author email="commons-dev@jakarta.apache.org">commons-dev</author>
    <title>Usage Scenarios</title>
  </properties>

  <body>
    <section name="Usage Scenarios">
      <p>
        The following sections describe some example scenarios on how to
        use CLI in applications.
      </p>

      <subsection name="Using a boolean option">
        <p>
          A boolean option is represented on a command line by the presence
          of the option, i.e. if the option is found then the option value
          is <code>true</code>, otherwise the value is <code>false</code>.
        </p>
        <p>
          The <code>DateApp</code> utility prints the current date to standard
          output.  If the <code>-t</code> option is present the current time is
          also printed.
        </p>
      </subsection>
      <subsection name="Create the Options">
        <p>
          An <a href="apidocs/org/apache/commons/cli/Options.html">
          Options</a> object must be created and the <code>Option</code> must be
          added to it.
        </p>
        <source>
// create Options object
Options options = new Options();

// add t option
options.addOption("t", false, "display current time");</source>
          <p>
            The <code>addOption</code> method has three parameters.  The first
            parameter is a <code>java.lang.String</code> that represents the option.
            The second parameter is a <code>boolean</code> that specifies whether the
            option requires an argument or not.  In the case of a boolean option
            (sometimes referred to as a flag) an argument value is not present so
            <code>false</code> is passed.  The third parameter is the description
            of the option.  This description will be used in the usage text of the
            application.
          </p>
      </subsection>
      <subsection name="Parsing the command line arguments">
        <p>
          The <code>parse</code> methods of <code>CommandLineParser</code> are used
          to parse the command line arguments.  The <code>PosixPaser</code> is
          great when you need to handle options that are one character long,
          like the <code>t</code> option in this example.
        </p>
        <source>CommandLineParser parser = new PosixParser();
CommandLine cmd = parser.parse( options, args);</source>
        <p>
          Now we need to check if the <code>t</code> option is present.  To do
          this we will interrogate the
          <a href="apidocs/org/apache/commons/cli/CommandLine.html">CommandLine
          </a> object.  The <code>hasOption</code> method takes a
          <code>java.lang.String</code> parameter and returns <code>true</code> if the option
          represented by the <code>java.lang.String</code> is present, otherwise
          it returns <code>false</code>.
        </p>
        <source>if(cmd.hasOption("t")) {
    // print the date and time
}
else {
    // print the date
}</source>
      </subsection>
      <subsection name="International Time">
        <p>
          The <code>InternationalDateApp</code> utility extends the
          <code>DateApp</code> utility by providing the ability to print the
          date and time in any country in the world.  To facilitate this a new
          command line option, <code>c</code>, has been introduced.
        </p>
        <source>// add c option
options.addOption("c", true, "country code");</source>
        <p>
          The second parameter is <code>true</code> this time.  This specifies that the
          <code>c</code> option requires an argument value.  If the required option
          argument value is specified on the command line it is returned,
          otherwise <code>null</code> is returned.
        </p>
      </subsection>
      <subsection name="Retrieving the argument value">
        <p>
          The <code>getOptionValue</code> methods of <code>CommandLine</code> are
          used to retrieve the argument values of options.
        </p>
        <source>// get c option value
String countryCode = cmd.getOptionValue("c");

if(countryCode == null) {
    // print default date
}
else {
    // print date for country specified by countryCode
}</source>
      </subsection>
    </section>

    <section name="Ant Example">
      <p>
        One of the most ubiquitous Java applications
        <a href="http://ant.apache.org/">Ant</a> will be used
        here to illustrate how to create the <code>Options</code> required.  The following
        is the help output for Ant.
      </p>
      <source>ant [options] [target [target2 [target3] ...]]
  Options:
  -help                  print this message
  -projecthelp           print project help information
  -version               print the version information and exit
  -quiet                 be extra quiet
  -verbose               be extra verbose
  -debug                 print debugging information
  -emacs                 produce logging information without adornments
  -logfile &lt;file&gt;        use given file for log
  -logger &lt;classname&gt;    the class which is to perform logging
  -listener &lt;classname&gt;  add an instance of class as a project listener
  -buildfile &lt;file&gt;      use given buildfile
  -D&lt;property>=&lt;value&gt;   use value for given property
  -find &lt;file&gt;           search for buildfile towards the root of the
                         filesystem and use it</source>
      <subsection name="Boolean Options">
        <p>
          Lets create the boolean options for the application as they
          are the easiest to create.  For clarity the constructors for
          <code>Option</code> are used here.
        </p>
        <source>Option help = new Option( "help", "print this message" );
Option projecthelp = new Option( "projecthelp", "print project help information" );
Option version = new Option( "version", "print the version information and exit" );
Option quiet = new Option( "quiet", "be extra quiet" );
Option verbose = new Option( "verbose", "be extra verbose" );
Option debug = new Option( "debug", "print debugging information" );
Option emacs = new Option( "emacs",
                           "produce logging information without adornments" );</source>
      </subsection>
      <subsection name="Argument Options">
        <p>
          The argument options are created using the <code>OptionBuilder</code>.
        </p>
        <source>Option logfile   = OptionBuilder.withArgName( "file" )
                                .hasArg()
                                .withDescription(  "use given file for log" )
                                .create( "logfile" );

Option logger    = OptionBuilder.withArgName( "classname" )
                                .hasArg()
                                .withDescription( "the class which it to perform "
                                                  + "logging" )
                                .create( "logger" );

Option listener  = OptionBuilder.withArgName( "classname" )
         
F9DA
                       .hasArg()
                                .withDescription( "add an instance of class as "
                                                  + "a project listener" )
                                .create( "listener");

Option buildfile = OptionBuilder.withArgName( "file" )
                                .hasArg()
                                .withDescription(  "use given buildfile" )
                                .create( "buildfile");

Option find      = OptionBuilder.withArgName( "file" )
                                .hasArg()
                                .withDescription( "search for buildfile towards the "
                                                  + "root of the filesystem and use it" )
                                .create( "find" );</source>
      </subsection>
      <subsection name="Java Property Option">
        <p>
          The last option to create is the Java property and it is also created
          using the OptionBuilder.
        </p>
        <source>Option property  = OptionBuilder.withArgName( "property=value" )
                                .hasArg()
                                .withValueSeparator()
                                .withDescription( "use value for given property" )
                                .create( "D" );</source>
      </subsection>
      <subsection name="Create the Options">
        <p>
          Now that we have created each
          <a href="apidocs/org/apache/commons/cli/Option.html">Option</a> we need
          to create the
          <a href="apidocs/org/apache/commons/cli/Options.html">Options</a>
          instance.  This is achieved using the
          <a href="apidocs/org/apache/commons/cli/CommandLine.html#addOption(org.apache.commons.cli.Option)">addOption</a>
          method of <code>Options</code>.
        </p>
        <source>Options options = new Options();

options.addOption( help );
options.addOption( projecthelp );
options.addOption( version );
options.addOption( quiet );
options.addOption( verbose );
options.addOption( debug );
options.addOption( emacs );
options.addOption( logfile );
options.addOption( logger );
options.addOption( listener );
options.addOption( buildfile );
options.addOption( find );
options.addOption( property );</source>
        <p>
          All the preperation is now complete and we are now ready to
          parse the command line arguments.
        </p>
      </subsection>
      <subsection name="Create the Parser">
        <p>
          We now need to create a <code>Parser</code>.  This will parse the command
          line arguments, using the rules specified by the <code>Options</code> and
          return an instance of <a href="apidocs/org/apache/commons/cli/CommandLine.html">CommandLine</a>.
          This time we will use a <a href="apidocs/org/apache/commons/cli/GnuParser.html">GnuParser</a>
          which is able to handle options that are more than one character long.
        </p>
        <source>public static void main( String[] args ) {
    // create the parser
    CommandLineParser parser = new GnuParser();
    try {
        // parse the command line arguments
        CommandLine line = parser.parse( options, args );
    }
    catch( ParseException exp ) {
        // oops, something went wrong
        System.err.println( "Parsing failed.  Reason: " + exp.getMessage() );
    }
}</source>
      </subsection>
      <subsection name="Querying the commandline">
        <p>
          To see if an option has been passed the <code>hasOption</code>
          method is used.  The argument value can be retrieved using
          the <code>getValue</code> method.
        </p>
        <source>// has the buildfile argument been passed?
if( line.hasOption( "buildfile" ) ) {
    // initialise the member variable
    this.buildfile = line.getValue( "buildfile" );
}</source>
      </subsection>
      <subsection name="Usage/Help">
        <p>
          CLI also provides the means to automatically generate usage
          and help information.  This is achieved with the
          <a href="apidocs/org/apache/commons/cli/HelpFormatter.html">HelpFormatter</a>
          class.
        </p>
        <source>// automatically generate the help statement
HelpFormatter formatter = new HelpFormatter();
formatter.printHelp( "ant", options );</source>
        <p>
          When executed the following output is produced:
        </p>
        <source>usage: ant
-D &lt;property=value&gt;     use value for given property
-buildfile &lt;file&gt;       use given buildfile
-debug                  print debugging information
-emacs                  produce logging information without adornments
-file &lt;file&gt;            search for buildfile towards the root of the
                        filesystem and use it
-help                   print this message
-listener &lt;classname&gt;   add an instance of class as a project listener
-logger &lt;classname&gt;     the class which it to perform logging
-projecthelp            print project help information
-quiet                  be extra quiet
-verbose                be extra verbose
-version                print the version information and exit</source>
        <p>
          If you also require to have a usage statement printed
          then calling <code>formatter.printHelp( "ant", options, true )</code>
          will generate a usage statment as well as the help information.
        </p>
      </subsection>
    </section>

    <section name="ls Example">
      <p>
        One of the most widely used command line applications in the *nix world
        is <code>ls</code>.  To parse a command line for an application like this
        we will use the <a href="apidocs/org/apache/commons/cli/PosixParser.html">PosixParser</a>.
        Due to the large number of options required for <code>ls</code> this
        example will only cover a small proportion of the options.  The following
        is a section of the help output.
      </p>
      <source>Usage: ls [OPTION]... [FILE]...
List information about the FILEs (the current directory by default).
Sort entries alphabetically if none of -cftuSUX nor --sort.

-a, --all                  do not hide entries starting with .
-A, --almost-all           do not list implied . and ..
-b, --escape               print octal escapes for nongraphic characters
    --block-size=SIZE      use SIZE-byte blocks
-B, --ignore-backups       do not list implied entries ending with ~
-c                         with -lt: sort by, and show, ctime (time of last
                           modification of file status information)
                           with -l: show ctime and sort by name
                           otherwise: sort by ctime
-C                         list entries by columns</source>
      <p>
        The following is the code that is used to create the
        <a href="apidocs/org/apache/commons/cli/Options.html">Options</a> for this example.
      </p>
      <source>// create the command line parser
CommandLineParser parser = new PosixParser();

// create the Options
Options options = new Options();
options.addOption( "a", "all", false, "do not hide entries starting with ." );
options.addOption( "A", "almost-all", false, "do not list implied . and .." );
options.addOption( "b", "escape", false, "print octal escapes for nongraphic "
                                         + "characters" );
options.addOption( OptionBuilder.withLongOpt( "block-size" )
                                .withDescription( "use SIZE-byte blocks" )
                                .withValueSeparator( '=' )
                                .hasArg()
                                .create() );
options.addOption( "B", "ignore-backups", false, "do not list implied entried "
                                                 + "ending with ~");
options.addOption( "c", false, "with -lt: sort by, and show, ctime (time of last "
                               + "modification of file status information) with "
                               + "-l:show ctime and sort by name otherwise: sort "
                               + "by ctime" );
options.addOption( "C", false, "list entries by columns" );

String[] args = new String[]{ "--block-size=10" };

try {
    // parse the command line arguments
    CommandLine line = parser.parse( options, args );

    // validate that block-size has been set
    if( line.hasOption( "block-size" ) ) {
        // print the value of block-size
        System.out.println( line.getOptionValue( "block-size" ) );
    }
}
catch( ParseException exp ) {
    System.out.println( "Unexpected exception:" + exp.getMessage() );
}</source>
    </section>
  </body>
</document>