[Boost-users] Handling "actions" with program_options

From: Julio M. Merino Vidal (jmmv84_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-02-20 16:02:38

Hi everybody,

I'm working on  a program whose its actual syntax is:

vcsme [-c conf_file] [-q] action [action_args]

(very similar to the CVS one).

I'm trying to convert it to use boost::program_options (to get rid of
the getopt(3) call, and to have long options), but I don't know how to
do it.

So far, I've added the code to handle -c and -q options.  This was
very easy to do, given the examples on the web.  The only annoyance is
that the options are accepted everywhere, but I'd prefer to only accept
them if they come before the action name (because the action itself
might allow options).

Unfortunately, I'm stuck with the latest part, the one to handle
actions.  There must always be an action passed to the program, which
may optionally accept arguments.  Some example invocations:

vcsme -q update
vcsme update gtk+ glib NetBSD

But I can't see any way to do this with program_options.  Using getopt,
I do:

argc -= optind; argv += optind;

after processing the options, so that argv[0] becomes the name of the
action, and any remaining entries are its arguments.  The same can be
achieved with getopt_long.

So... is it there any way to do what I want with the actual
implementation?  Can't see anything relevant in the docs...

Thanks,

-- 
Julio M. Merino Vidal <jmmv84_at_[hidden]>
http://www.livejournal.com/users/jmmv/
The NetBSD Project - http://www.NetBSD.org/