NAME

Perinci::CmdLine - Rinci/Riap-based command-line application framework

VERSION

version 0.42

SYNOPSIS

In your command-line script:

 #!/usr/bin/perl
 use Perinci::CmdLine;
 Perinci::CmdLine->new(url => 'Your::Module', ...)->run;

See also the peri-run script which provides a command-line interface for Perinci::CmdLine.

DESCRIPTION

Perinci::CmdLine is a command-line application framework. It access functions using Riap protocol (Perinci::Access) so you get transparent remote access. It utilizes Rinci metadata in the code so the amount of plumbing that you have to do is quite minimal.

What you'll get:

• Command-line parsing (currently using Getopt::Long, with some tweaks)

• Help message (utilizing information from metadata)

• Tab completion for bash (including completion from remote code)

This module uses Log::Any and Log::Any::App for logging.

This module uses Moo for OO.

ATTRIBUTES

program_name => STR (default from $0)

url => STR

Required if you only want to run one function. URL should point to a function entity.

Alternatively you can provide multiple functions from which the user can select using the first argument (see subcommands).

summary => STR

If unset, will be retrieved from function metadata when needed.

subcommands => {NAME => {ARGUMENT=>...}, ...} | CODEREF

Should be a hash of subcommand specifications or a coderef.

Each subcommand specification is also a hash(ref) and should contain these keys: url. It can also contain these keys: summary (will be retrieved from function metadata if unset), tags (for categorizing subcommands).

Subcommands can also be a coderef, for dynamic list of subcommands. The coderef will be called as a method with hash arguments. It can be called in two cases. First, if called without argument name (usually when doing --list) it must return a hashref of subcommand specifications. If called with argument name it must return subcommand specification for subcommand with the requested name only.

exit => BOOL (default 1)

If set to 0, instead of exiting with exit(), run() will return the exit code instead.

custom_completer => CODEREF

Will be passed to Perinci::BashComplete's bash_complete_riap_func_arg. See its documentation for more details.

custom_arg_completer => CODEREF | {ARGNAME=>CODEREF, ...}

Will be passed to Perinci::BashComplete. See its documentation for more details.

dash_to_underscore => BOOL (optional, default 1)

If set to 1, subcommand like a-b-c will be converted to a_b_c. This is for convenience when typing in command line.

undo => BOOL (optional, default 0)

UNFINISHED. If set to 1, --undo and --undo-dir will be added to command-line options. --undo is used to perform undo: -undo and -undo_data will be passed to subroutine, an error will be thrown if subroutine does not have undo features. --undo-dir is used to set location of undo data (default ~/.undo; undo directory will be created if not exists; each subroutine will have its own subdir here).

METHODS

new(%opts) => OBJ

Create an instance.

run() -> INT

The main routine. Its job is to parse command-line options in @ARGV and determine which action method (e.g. run_subcommand(), run_help(), etc) to run. Action method should return an integer containing exit code. If action method returns undef, the next action candidate method will be tried.

After that, exit() will be called with the exit code from the action method (or, if exit attribute is set to false, routine will return with exit code instead).

BASH COMPLETION

To do bash completion, first create your script, e.g. myscript, that uses Perinci::CmdLine:

 #!/usr/bin/perl
 use Perinci::CmdLine;
 Perinci::CmdLine->new(...)->run;

then execute this in bash (or put it in bash startup files like /etc/bash.bashrc or ~/.bashrc for future sessions):

 % complete -C myscript myscript; # myscript must be in PATH

RESULT METADATA

This module interprets the following result metadata keys:

cmdline.display_result => BOOL

If you don't want to display function output (for example, function output is a detailed data structure which might not be important for end users), you can set cmdline.display_result result metadata to false. Example:

 $SPEC{foo} = { ... };
 sub foo {
     ...
     [200, "OK", $data, {"cmdline.display_result"=>0}];
 }

cmdline.page_result => BOOL

If you want to filter the result through pager (currently defaults to $ENV{PAGER} or less -FRS), you can set cmdline.page_result in result metadata to true.

For example:

 $SPEC{doc} = { ... };
 sub doc {
     ...
     [200, "OK", $doc, {"cmdline.page_result"=>1}];
 }

cmdline.pager => STR

Instruct Perinci::CmdLine to use specified pager instead of $ENV{PAGER} or the default less or more.

FAQ

How does Perinci::CmdLine compare with other CLI-app frameworks?

Perinci::CmdLine is part of a more general metadata and wrapping framework (Perinci::* modules family). Aside from a command-line application, your metadata is also usable for other purposes, like providing access over HTTP/TCP, documentation. Sub::Spec::CmdLine is not OO. Configuration file support is missing (coming soon, most probably based on Config::Ini::OnDrugs). Also lacking is more documentation and more plugins.

Why is nonscalar arguments parsed as YAML instead of JSON/etc?

I think YAML is nicer in command-line because quotes are optional in a few places:

 $ cmd --array '[a, b, c]' --hash '{foo: bar}'

versus:

 $ cmd --array '["a","b","c"]' --hash '{"foo":"bar"}'

Though YAML requires spaces in some places where JSON does not. A flag to parse as JSON can be added upon request.

SEE ALSO

Perinci, Rinci, Riap.

Other CPAN modules to write command-line applications: App::Cmd, App::Rad, MooseX::Getopt.

AUTHOR

Steven Haryanto <stevenharyanto@gmail.com>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2012 by Steven Haryanto.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.

cpanm Perinci::CmdLine

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Perinci::CmdLine