Re: [boost] Re: arguments parsing, wildcard matcher

From: David A. Greene (greened_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-11-19 15:19:36

williamkempf_at_[hidden] wrote:

> A good parser should allow multiple arguments per option 
> as well as allowing free arguments to be interspersed within the 
> options.  This isn't an easy thing to do and is nearly impossible 
> with the simpler APIs.

I seem to have lost/not received the beginning of this thread so

apologies if this has already been discussed.

I've written an argument parser for my currect project that

has some features I've found to be essential for what I do:

- Sub-options.  These work something like this:

   ./program "--option1={--variant1=value --variant2}"

   (Quoting is necessary for shell reasons, obviously)

- Registration of option actions.  When an individual option
   is created, it is passed an object describing what to do
   when the option name is parsed.  There are many pre-built
   actions such as "set this variable to the option's value,"
   "toggle this flag" and "execute this function object."
   Sub-options are implemented with the "function object"
   action where the action object just points to a
   functor/function that reinvokes the argument parser on
   the option value.

The above implies that the option database is structured
as a tree, so that the option object for an argument with
sub-options contains all of the registration info for that
argument.  Thus when the parser is reinvoked it is passed
a small branch of the full option tree.

Is this making any sense at all?

I was planinng on reimplementing the package using the
Spirit C++ parser framework, which I believe will eventually
be submitted to Boost.  The package itself could be coded
much better than it is -- it began way back before g++ had
good template support, so it really needs an overhaul.
I just wanted to throw out some ideas from my experience
developing and using it.

                             -Dave

-- 
"Some little people have music in them, but Fats, he was all music,
  and you know how big he was."  --  James P. Johnson