Commandeer sets up command line flags based on struct fields and tags.
Do you...
- like to develop Go apps as libraries with tiny main packages?
- get frustrated keeping your flags up to date as your code evolves?
- feel irked by the overlap between comments on struct fields and help strings for flags?
- hate switching between your app's main and library packages?
You might like Commandeer. See the godoc for detailed usage, or just...
Here's how it works, define your app like so:
package myapp import"fmt"typeMainstruct{Numint`help:"How many does it take?"`Vehiclestring`help:"What did they get?"` } funcNewMain() *Main{return&Main{Num: 5, Vehicle: "jeep"} } func (m*Main) Run() error{ifm.Num<2||m.Vehicle==""{returnfmt.Errorf("Need more gophers and/or vehicles.") } fmt.Printf("%d gophers stole my %s!\n", m.Num, m.Vehicle) returnnil }and your main package:
package main import ( "fmt""github.com/jaffee/commandeer""github.com/jaffee/commandeer/examples/myapp" ) funcmain(){err:=commandeer.Run(myapp.NewMain()) iferr!=nil{fmt.Println(err) } }Now...
$ ./myapp -h Usage of ./myapp: -num int How many does it take? (default 5) -vehicle string What did they get? (default "jeep") $ ./myapp 5 gophers stole my jeep! $ ./myapp -num 3 -vehicle horse 3 gophers stole my horse!Notice that Commandeer set up the default values for each flag based on the values in the struct passed to Run.
Commandeer is set up for minimal dependency pollution - it uses only stdlib dependencies and is a few hundred lines of code itself. You need only import it from a tiny main package (as in the example), and shouldn't need to reference it anywhere else.
If you aren't allergic to external dependencies, you can also try github.com/jaffee/commandeer/cobrafy which pulls in the excellent Cobra and pflag packages giving you GNU/POSIX style flags and some other nice features should you care to use them. See the godoc, or the myapp-cobrafy example.
In addition to the help struct tag, you can use flag to override the computed flag name, e.g.
typeMainstruct{Numint`flag:"number"` }You can also use flag:"-" to explicitly ignore fields from being used as flags, e.g.
typeMainstruct{Numint`flag:"-"` }Nested structs are supported, by default the field names will be joined with "." to create the flag name, e.g.
typeMainstruct{Vehiclestruct{ColorstringWeightint } }produces:
-vehicle.color string -vehicle.weight int If you wish to avoid this prefix behavior (e.g. if you have an embedded struct field and you want to elevate its fields to the top level) you can use flag:"!embed", e.g.
typeMainstruct{Vehiclestruct{ColorstringWeightint } `flag:"!embed"` }which will produce:
-color string -weight int Yes please!
For small stuff, feel free to submit a PR directly. For larger things, especially API changes, it's best to make an issue first so it can be discussed.