Re: [boost] [ANN] CLI command line interface compiler for C++

Subject: Re: [boost] [ANN] CLI command line interface compiler for C++
From: Hartmut Kaiser (hartmut.kaiser_at_[hidden])
Date: 2009-10-29 11:12:00

> I am pleased to announce the first public release of CLI.
> 
> CLI is an open-source (MIT license), cross-platform command line
> interface compiler for C++. It allows you to specify the options that
> your program supports, their types, and default values. For example:
> 
> include <string>;
> 
> class options
> {
>   bool --help;
>   std::string --name = "example";
>   unsigned int --level | -l = 5;
> };
> 
> This specification can then be automatically translated to C++ classes
> that implement parsing of the command line arguments and provide a
> convenient and type-safe interface for accessing the extracted data.
> For example:
> 
> #include <string>
> 
> class options
> {
> public:
>   options (int argc, char** argv);
>   options (int argc, char** argv, int& end);
> 
>   bool help () const;
>   const std::string& name () const;
>   unsigned int level () const;
> 
>   ...
> };
> 
> int main (int argc, char* argv[])
> {
>   options o (argc, argv);
> 
>   if (o.help ())
>     print_usage ();
> 
>   if (o.level () > 4)
>     cerr << "name is " << o.name () << endl;
>   ...
> }
> 
> It is easy to start using CLI in your application since there are no
> external dependencies. You can compile your command line interface to
> C++ and simply add the generated files to your project's source code.
> 
> For a five minute introduction to CLI, see the "Hello World" example in
> the CLI Getting Started Guide:
> 
> http://www.codesynthesis.com/projects/cli/doc/guide/#2
> 
> More information, documentation, and source code distributions are
> available from the project's web page:
> 
> http://www.codesynthesis.com/projects/cli/

What's the benefit of your solution if compared to Boost.ProgramOptions? 
Does it generate code based on the Boost.ProgramOptions API?

Regards Hartmut

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