NAME¶
AppConfig::Args - Perl5 module for reading command line arguments.
SYNOPSIS¶
use AppConfig::Args;
my $state = AppConfig::State->new(\%cfg);
my $cfgargs = AppConfig::Args->new($state);
$cfgargs->parse(\@args); # read args
OVERVIEW¶
AppConfig::Args is a Perl5 module which reads command line arguments and uses
the options therein to update variable values in an AppConfig::State object.
AppConfig::File is distributed as part of the AppConfig bundle.
DESCRIPTION¶
USING THE AppConfig::Args MODULE¶
To import and use the AppConfig::Args module the following line should appear in
your Perl script:
use AppConfig::Args;
AppConfig::Args is used automatically if you use the AppConfig module and create
an AppConfig::Args object through the
parse() method.
AppConfig::File is implemented using object-oriented methods. A new
AppConfig::Args object is created and initialised using the
new()
method. This returns a reference to a new AppConfig::File object. A reference
to an AppConfig::State object should be passed in as the first parameter:
my $state = AppConfig::State->new();
my $cfgargs = AppConfig::Args->new($state);
This will create and return a reference to a new AppConfig::Args object.
PARSING COMMAND LINE ARGUMENTS¶
The "parse()" method is used to read a list of command line arguments
and update the STATE accordingly. A reference to the list of arguments should
be passed in.
$cfgargs->parse(\@ARGV);
If the method is called without a reference to an argument list then it will
examine and manipulate @ARGV.
If the PEDANTIC option is turned off in the AppConfig::State object, any parsing
errors (invalid variables, unvalidated values, etc) will generate warnings,
but not cause the method to return. Having processed all arguments, the method
will return 1 if processed without warning or 0 if one or more warnings were
raised. When the PEDANTIC option is turned on, the method generates a warning
and immediately returns a value of 0 as soon as it encounters any parsing
error.
The method continues parsing arguments until it detects the first one that does
not start with a leading dash, '-'. Arguments that constitute values for other
options are not examined in this way.
FUTURE DEVELOPMENT¶
This module was developed to provide backwards compatibility (to some degree)
with the preceeding App::Config module. The argument parsing it provides is
basic but offers a quick and efficient solution for those times when simple
option handling is all that is required.
If you require more flexibility in parsing command line arguments, then you
should consider using the AppConfig::Getopt module. This is loaded and used
automatically by calling the AppConfig
getopt() method.
The AppConfig::Getopt module provides considerably extended functionality over
the AppConfig::Args module by delegating out the task of argument parsing to
Johan Vromans' Getopt::Long module. For advanced command-line parsing, this
module (either Getopt::Long by itself, or in conjunction with
AppConfig::Getopt) is highly recommended.
AUTHOR¶
Andy Wardley, <abw@wardley.org>
COPYRIGHT¶
Copyright (C) 1997-2007 Andy Wardley. All Rights Reserved.
Copyright (C) 1997,1998 Canon Research Centre Europe Ltd.
This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the
same terms as Perl itself.
SEE ALSO¶
AppConfig, AppConfig::State, AppConfig::Getopt, Getopt::Long