Library
Module
Module type
Parameter
Class
Class type
Declarative definition of command line interfaces.
Cmdliner
provides a simple and compositional mechanism to convert command line arguments to OCaml values and pass them to your functions. The module automatically handles syntax errors, help messages and UNIX man page generation. It supports programs with single or multiple commands (like darcs
or git
) and respect most of the POSIX and GNU conventions.
Consult the basics, details about the supported command line syntax and examples of use. Open the module to use it, it defines only three modules in your scope.
v1.0.4 — homepage
module Manpage : sig ... end
Man page specification.
module Term : sig ... end
Terms.
module Arg : sig ... end
Terms for command line arguments.
With Cmdliner
your program evaluates a term. A term is a value of type Term.t
. The type parameter indicates the type of the result of the evaluation.
One way to create terms is by lifting regular OCaml values with Term.const
. Terms can be applied to terms evaluating to functional values with Term.($)
. For example for the function:
let revolt () = print_endline "Revolt!"
the term :
open Cmdliner
let revolt_t = Term.(const revolt $ const ())
is a term that evaluates to the result (and effect) of the revolt
function. Terms are evaluated with Term.eval
:
let () = Term.exit @@ Term.eval (revolt_t, Term.info "revolt")
This defines a command line program named "revolt"
, without command line arguments, that just prints "Revolt!"
on stdout
.
> ./revolt
Revolt!
The combinators in the Arg
module allow to extract command line argument data as terms. These terms can then be applied to lifted OCaml functions to be evaluated by the program.
Terms corresponding to command line argument data that are part of a term evaluation implicitly define a command line syntax. We show this on an concrete example.
Consider the chorus
function that prints repeatedly a given message :
let chorus count msg =
for i = 1 to count do print_endline msg done
we want to make it available from the command line with the synopsis:
chorus [-c COUNT | --count=COUNT] [MSG]
where COUNT
defaults to 10
and MSG
defaults to "Revolt!"
. We first define a term corresponding to the --count
option:
let count =
let doc = "Repeat the message $(docv) times." in
Arg.(value & opt int 10 & info ["c"; "count"] ~docv:"COUNT" ~doc)
This says that count
is a term that evaluates to the value of an optional argument of type int
that defaults to 10
if unspecified and whose option name is either -c
or --count
. The arguments doc
and docv
are used to generate the option's man page information.
The term for the positional argument MSG
is:
let msg =
let doc = "Overrides the default message to print." in
let env = Arg.env_var "CHORUS_MSG" ~doc in
let doc = "The message to print." in
Arg.(value & pos 0 string "Revolt!" & info [] ~env ~docv:"MSG" ~doc)
which says that msg
is a term whose value is the positional argument at index 0
of type string
and defaults to "Revolt!"
or the value of the environment variable CHORUS_MSG
if the argument is unspecified on the command line. Here again doc
and docv
are used for the man page information.
The term for executing chorus
with these command line arguments is :
let chorus_t = Term.(const chorus $ count $ msg)
and we are now ready to define our program:
let info =
let doc = "print a customizable message repeatedly" in
let man = [
`S Manpage.s_bugs;
`P "Email bug reports to <hehey at example.org>." ]
in
Term.info "chorus" ~version:"%%VERSION%%" ~doc ~exits:Term.default_exits ~man
let () = Term.exit @@ Term.eval (chorus_t, info))
The info
value created with Term.info
gives more information about the term we execute and is used to generate the program's man page. Since we provided a ~version
string, the program will automatically respond to the --version
option by printing this string.
A program using Term.eval
always responds to the --help
option by showing the man page about the program generated using the information you provided with Term.info
and Arg.info
. Here is the output generated by our example :
> ./chorus --help NAME chorus - print a customizable message repeatedly SYNOPSIS chorus [OPTION]... [MSG] ARGUMENTS MSG (absent=Revolt! or CHORUS_MSG env) The message to print. OPTIONS -c COUNT, --count=COUNT (absent=10) Repeat the message COUNT times. --help[=FMT] (default=auto) Show this help in format FMT. The value FMT must be one of `auto', `pager', `groff' or `plain'. With `auto', the format is `pager` or `plain' whenever the TERM env var is `dumb' or undefined. --version Show version information. EXIT STATUS chorus exits with the following status: 0 on success. 124 on command line parsing errors. 125 on unexpected internal errors (bugs). ENVIRONMENT These environment variables affect the execution of chorus: CHORUS_MSG Overrides the default message to print. BUGS Email bug reports to <hehey at example.org>.
If a pager is available, this output is written to a pager. This help is also available in plain text or in the groff man page format by invoking the program with the option --help=plain
or --help=groff
.
For examples of more complex command line definitions look and run the examples.
Cmdliner
also provides support for programs like darcs
or git
that have multiple commands each with their own syntax:
prog COMMAND [OPTION]... ARG...
A command is defined by coupling a term with term information. The term information defines the command name and its man page. Given a list of commands the function Term.eval_choice
will execute the term corresponding to the COMMAND
argument or a specific "main" term if there is no COMMAND
argument.
Manpage blocks and doc strings support the following markup language.
$(i,text)
and $(b,text)
, where text
is raw text respectively rendered in italics and bold.$(var)
are substituted by marked up data. For example in a term's man page $(tname)
is substituted by the term name in bold."\\$"
, "\\("
, "\\)"
, "\\\\"
). Escaping $ and \ is mandatory everywhere. Escaping ) is mandatory only in markup directives. Escaping ( is only here for your symmetric pleasure. Any other sequence of characters starting with a \ is an illegal character sequence.Man page sections for a term are printed in the order specified by the term manual as given to Term.info
. Unless specified explicitely in the term's manual the following sections are automaticaly created and populated for you:
The various doc
documentation strings specified by the term's subterms and additional metadata get inserted at the end of the documentation section name docs
they respectively mention, in the following order:
Term.info
.Arg.info
. Those are listed iff both the docv
and doc
string is specified by Arg.info
.Arg.info
.Term.exit_info
.Arg.env_var
and Term.env_info
.If a docs
section name is mentioned and does not exist in the term's manual, an empty section is created for it, after which the doc
strings are inserted, possibly prefixed by boilerplate text (e.g. for Manpage.s_environment
and Manpage.s_exit_status
).
If the created section is:
Manpage.s_synopsis
if there is no such section.Manpage.s_commands
section or the first subsequent existing standard section if it doesn't exist. Taking advantage of this behaviour is discouraged, you should declare manually your non standard section in the term's manual.Ideally all manual strings should be UTF-8 encoded. However at the moment macOS (until at least 10.12) is stuck with groff 1.19.2
which doesn't support `preconv(1)`. Regarding UTF-8 output, generating the man page with -Tutf8
maps the hyphen-minus U+002D
to the minus sign U+2212
which makes it difficult to search it in the pager, so -Tascii
is used for now. Conclusion is that it is better to stick to the ASCII set for now. Please contact the author if something seems wrong in this reasoning or if you know a work around this.
--cmdliner
is reserved by the library.--help
, (and --version
if you specify a version string) is reserved by the library. Using it as a term or option name may result in undefined behaviour.Invalid_argument
.For programs evaluating a single term the most general form of invocation is:
prog [OPTION]... [ARG]...
The program automatically reponds to the --help
option by printing the help. If a version string is provided in the term information, it also automatically responds to the --version
option by printing this string.
Command line arguments are either optional or positional. Both can be freely interleaved but since Cmdliner
accepts many optional forms this may result in ambiguities. The special token --
can be used to resolve them.
Programs evaluating multiple terms also add this form of invocation:
prog COMMAND [OPTION]... [ARG]...
Commands automatically respond to the --help
option by printing their help. The COMMAND
string must be the first string following the program name and may be specified by a prefix as long as it is not ambiguous.
An optional argument is specified on the command line by a name possibly followed by a value.
The name of an option can be short or long.
"-h"
, "-q"
, "-I"
."--help"
, "--silent"
, "--ignore-case"
.More than one name may refer to the same optional argument. For example in a given program the names "-q"
, "--quiet"
and "--silent"
may all stand for the same boolean argument indicating the program to be quiet. Long names can be specified by any non ambiguous prefix.
The value of an option can be specified in three different ways.
"-o a.out"
, "--output a.out"
."-oa.out"
."--output=a.out"
.Glued forms are especially useful if the value itself starts with a dash as is the case for negative numbers, "--min=-10"
.
An optional argument without a value is either a flag (see Arg.flag
, Arg.vflag
) or an optional argument with an optional value (see the ~vopt
argument of Arg.opt
).
Short flags can be grouped together to share a single dash and the group can end with a short option. For example assuming "-v"
and "-x"
are flags and "-f"
is a short option:
"-vx"
will be parsed as "-v -x"
."-vxfopt"
will be parsed as "-v -x -fopt"
."-vxf opt"
will be parsed as "-v -x -fopt"
."-fvx"
will be parsed as "-f=vx"
.Positional arguments are tokens on the command line that are not option names and are not the value of an optional argument. They are numbered from left to right starting with zero.
Since positional arguments may be mistaken as the optional value of an optional argument or they may need to look like option names, anything that follows the special token "--"
on the command line is considered to be a positional argument.
Non-required command line arguments can be backed up by an environment variable. If the argument is absent from the command line and that the environment variable is defined, its value is parsed using the argument converter and defines the value of the argument.
For Arg.flag
and Arg.flag_all
that do not have an argument converter a boolean is parsed from the lowercased variable value as follows:
""
, "false"
, "no"
, "n"
or "0"
is false
."true"
, "yes"
, "y"
or "1"
is true
.Note that environment variables are not supported for Arg.vflag
and Arg.vflag_all
.
These examples are in the test
directory of the distribution.
rm
commandWe define the command line interface of a rm
command with the synopsis:
rm [OPTION]... FILE...
The -f
, -i
and -I
flags define the prompt behaviour of rm
, represented in our program by the prompt
type. If more than one of these flags is present on the command line the last one takes precedence.
To implement this behaviour we map the presence of these flags to values of the prompt
type by using Arg.vflag_all
. This argument will contain all occurrences of the flag on the command line and we just take the Arg.last
one to define our term value (if there's no occurrence the last value of the default list [Always]
is taken, i.e. the default is Always
).
(* Implementation of the command, we just print the args. *)
type prompt = Always | Once | Never
let prompt_str = function
| Always -> "always" | Once -> "once" | Never -> "never"
let rm prompt recurse files =
Printf.printf "prompt = %s\nrecurse = %B\nfiles = %s\n"
(prompt_str prompt) recurse (String.concat ", " files)
(* Command line interface *)
open Cmdliner
let files = Arg.(non_empty & pos_all file [] & info [] ~docv:"FILE")
let prompt =
let doc = "Prompt before every removal." in
let always = Always, Arg.info ["i"] ~doc in
let doc = "Ignore nonexistent files and never prompt." in
let never = Never, Arg.info ["f"; "force"] ~doc in
let doc = "Prompt once before removing more than three files, or when
removing recursively. Less intrusive than $(b,-i), while
still giving protection against most mistakes."
in
let once = Once, Arg.info ["I"] ~doc in
Arg.(last & vflag_all [Always] [always; never; once])
let recursive =
let doc = "Remove directories and their contents recursively." in
Arg.(value & flag & info ["r"; "R"; "recursive"] ~doc)
let cmd =
let doc = "remove files or directories" in
let man = [
`S Manpage.s_description;
`P "$(tname) removes each specified $(i,FILE). By default it does not
remove directories, to also remove them and their contents, use the
option $(b,--recursive) ($(b,-r) or $(b,-R)).";
`P "To remove a file whose name starts with a `-', for example
`-foo', use one of these commands:";
`P "rm -- -foo"; `Noblank;
`P "rm ./-foo";
`P "$(tname) removes symbolic links, not the files referenced by the
links.";
`S Manpage.s_bugs; `P "Report bugs to <hehey at example.org>.";
`S Manpage.s_see_also; `P "$(b,rmdir)(1), $(b,unlink)(2)" ]
in
Term.(const rm $ prompt $ recursive $ files),
Term.info "rm" ~version:"v1.0.4" ~doc ~exits:Term.default_exits ~man
let () = Term.(exit @@ eval cmd)
cp
commandWe define the command line interface of a cp
command with the synopsis:
cp [OPTION]... SOURCE... DEST
The DEST
argument must be a directory if there is more than one SOURCE
. This constraint is too complex to be expressed by the combinators of Arg
. Hence we just give it the Arg.string
type and verify the constraint at the beginning of the cp
implementation. If unsatisfied we return an `Error
and by using Term.ret
on the lifted result cp_t
of cp
, Cmdliner
handles the error reporting.
(* Implementation, we check the dest argument and print the args *)
let cp verbose recurse force srcs dest =
if List.length srcs > 1 &&
(not (Sys.file_exists dest) || not (Sys.is_directory dest))
then
`Error (false, dest ^ " is not a directory")
else
`Ok (Printf.printf
"verbose = %B\nrecurse = %B\nforce = %B\nsrcs = %s\ndest = %s\n"
verbose recurse force (String.concat ", " srcs) dest)
(* Command line interface *)
open Cmdliner
let verbose =
let doc = "Print file names as they are copied." in
Arg.(value & flag & info ["v"; "verbose"] ~doc)
let recurse =
let doc = "Copy directories recursively." in
Arg.(value & flag & info ["r"; "R"; "recursive"] ~doc)
let force =
let doc = "If a destination file cannot be opened, remove it and try again."in
Arg.(value & flag & info ["f"; "force"] ~doc)
let srcs =
let doc = "Source file(s) to copy." in
Arg.(non_empty & pos_left ~rev:true 0 file [] & info [] ~docv:"SOURCE" ~doc)
let dest =
let doc = "Destination of the copy. Must be a directory if there is more
than one $(i,SOURCE)." in
Arg.(required & pos ~rev:true 0 (some string) None & info [] ~docv:"DEST"
~doc)
let cmd =
let doc = "copy files" in
let man_xrefs =
[ `Tool "mv"; `Tool "scp"; `Page (2, "umask"); `Page (7, "symlink") ]
in
let exits = Term.default_exits in
let man =
[ `S Manpage.s_bugs;
`P "Email them to <hehey at example.org>."; ]
in
Term.(ret (const cp $ verbose $ recurse $ force $ srcs $ dest)),
Term.info "cp" ~version:"v1.0.4" ~doc ~exits ~man ~man_xrefs
let () = Term.(exit @@ eval cmd)
tail
commandWe define the command line interface of a tail
command with the synopsis:
tail [OPTION]... [FILE]...
The --lines
option whose value specifies the number of last lines to print has a special syntax where a +
prefix indicates to start printing from that line number. In the program this is represented by the loc
type. We define a custom loc
argument converter for this option.
The --follow
option has an optional enumerated value. The argument converter follow
, created with Arg.enum
parses the option value into the enumeration. By using Arg.some
and the ~vopt
argument of Arg.opt
, the term corresponding to the option --follow
evaluates to None
if --follow
is absent from the command line, to Some
Descriptor
if present but without a value and to Some v
if present with a value v
specified.
(* Implementation of the command, we just print the args. *)
type loc = bool * int
type verb = Verbose | Quiet
type follow = Name | Descriptor
let str = Printf.sprintf
let opt_str sv = function None -> "None" | Some v -> str "Some(%s)" (sv v)
let loc_str (rev, k) = if rev then str "%d" k else str "+%d" k
let follow_str = function Name -> "name" | Descriptor -> "descriptor"
let verb_str = function Verbose -> "verbose" | Quiet -> "quiet"
let tail lines follow verb pid files =
Printf.printf "lines = %s\nfollow = %s\nverb = %s\npid = %s\nfiles = %s\n"
(loc_str lines) (opt_str follow_str follow) (verb_str verb)
(opt_str string_of_int pid) (String.concat ", " files)
(* Command line interface *)
open Cmdliner
let lines =
let loc =
let parse s =
try
if s <> "" && s.[0] <> '+' then Ok (true, int_of_string s) else
Ok (false, int_of_string (String.sub s 1 (String.length s - 1)))
with Failure _ -> Error (`Msg "unable to parse integer")
in
let print ppf p = Format.fprintf ppf "%s" (loc_str p) in
Arg.conv ~docv:"N" (parse, print)
in
Arg.(value & opt loc (true, 10) & info ["n"; "lines"] ~docv:"N"
~doc:"Output the last $(docv) lines or use $(i,+)$(docv) to start
output after the $(i,N)-1th line.")
let follow =
let doc = "Output appended data as the file grows. $(docv) specifies how the
file should be tracked, by its `name' or by its `descriptor'." in
let follow = Arg.enum ["name", Name; "descriptor", Descriptor] in
Arg.(value & opt (some follow) ~vopt:(Some Descriptor) None &
info ["f"; "follow"] ~docv:"ID" ~doc)
let verb =
let doc = "Never output headers giving file names." in
let quiet = Quiet, Arg.info ["q"; "quiet"; "silent"] ~doc in
let doc = "Always output headers giving file names." in
let verbose = Verbose, Arg.info ["v"; "verbose"] ~doc in
Arg.(last & vflag_all [Quiet] [quiet; verbose])
let pid =
let doc = "With -f, terminate after process $(docv) dies." in
Arg.(value & opt (some int) None & info ["pid"] ~docv:"PID" ~doc)
let files = Arg.(value & (pos_all non_dir_file []) & info [] ~docv:"FILE")
let cmd =
let doc = "display the last part of a file" in
let man = [
`S Manpage.s_description;
`P "$(tname) prints the last lines of each $(i,FILE) to standard output. If
no file is specified reads standard input. The number of printed
lines can be specified with the $(b,-n) option.";
`S Manpage.s_bugs;
`P "Report them to <hehey at example.org>.";
`S Manpage.s_see_also;
`P "$(b,cat)(1), $(b,head)(1)" ]
in
Term.(const tail $ lines $ follow $ verb $ pid $ files),
Term.info "tail" ~version:"%%VERSION%%" ~doc ~exits:Term.default_exits ~man
let () = Term.(exit @@ eval cmd)
darcs
commandWe define the command line interface of a darcs
command with the synopsis:
darcs [COMMAND] ...
The --debug
, -q
, -v
and --prehook
options are available in each command. To avoid having to pass them individually to each command we gather them in a record of type copts
. By lifting the record constructor copts
into the term copts_t
we now have a term that we can pass to the commands to stand for an argument of type copts
. These options are documented in a section called COMMON
OPTIONS
, since we also want to put --help
and --version
in this section, the term information of commands makes a judicious use of the sdocs
parameter of Term.info
.
The help
command shows help about commands or other topics. The help shown for commands is generated by Cmdliner
by making an appropriate use of Term.ret
on the lifted help
function.
If the program is invoked without a command we just want to show the help of the program as printed by Cmdliner
with --help
. This is done by the default_cmd
term.
(* Implementations, just print the args. *)
type verb = Normal | Quiet | Verbose
type copts = { debug : bool; verb : verb; prehook : string option }
let str = Printf.sprintf
let opt_str sv = function None -> "None" | Some v -> str "Some(%s)" (sv v)
let opt_str_str = opt_str (fun s -> s)
let verb_str = function
| Normal -> "normal" | Quiet -> "quiet" | Verbose -> "verbose"
let pr_copts oc copts = Printf.fprintf oc
"debug = %B\nverbosity = %s\nprehook = %s\n"
copts.debug (verb_str copts.verb) (opt_str_str copts.prehook)
let initialize copts repodir = Printf.printf
"%arepodir = %s\n" pr_copts copts repodir
let record copts name email all ask_deps files = Printf.printf
"%aname = %s\nemail = %s\nall = %B\nask-deps = %B\nfiles = %s\n"
pr_copts copts (opt_str_str name) (opt_str_str email) all ask_deps
(String.concat ", " files)
let help copts man_format cmds topic = match topic with
| None -> `Help (`Pager, None) (* help about the program. *)
| Some topic ->
let topics = "topics" :: "patterns" :: "environment" :: cmds in
let conv, _ = Cmdliner.Arg.enum (List.rev_map (fun s -> (s, s)) topics) in
match conv topic with
| `Error e -> `Error (false, e)
| `Ok t when t = "topics" -> List.iter print_endline topics; `Ok ()
| `Ok t when List.mem t cmds -> `Help (man_format, Some t)
| `Ok t ->
let page = (topic, 7, "", "", ""), [`S topic; `P "Say something";] in
`Ok (Cmdliner.Manpage.print man_format Format.std_formatter page)
open Cmdliner
(* Help sections common to all commands *)
let help_secs = [
`S Manpage.s_common_options;
`P "These options are common to all commands.";
`S "MORE HELP";
`P "Use `$(mname) $(i,COMMAND) --help' for help on a single command.";`Noblank;
`P "Use `$(mname) help patterns' for help on patch matching."; `Noblank;
`P "Use `$(mname) help environment' for help on environment variables.";
`S Manpage.s_bugs; `P "Check bug reports at http://bugs.example.org.";]
(* Options common to all commands *)
let copts debug verb prehook = { debug; verb; prehook }
let copts_t =
let docs = Manpage.s_common_options in
let debug =
let doc = "Give only debug output." in
Arg.(value & flag & info ["debug"] ~docs ~doc)
in
let verb =
let doc = "Suppress informational output." in
let quiet = Quiet, Arg.info ["q"; "quiet"] ~docs ~doc in
let doc = "Give verbose output." in
let verbose = Verbose, Arg.info ["v"; "verbose"] ~docs ~doc in
Arg.(last & vflag_all [Normal] [quiet; verbose])
in
let prehook =
let doc = "Specify command to run before this $(mname) command." in
Arg.(value & opt (some string) None & info ["prehook"] ~docs ~doc)
in
Term.(const copts $ debug $ verb $ prehook)
(* Commands *)
let initialize_cmd =
let repodir =
let doc = "Run the program in repository directory $(docv)." in
Arg.(value & opt file Filename.current_dir_name & info ["repodir"]
~docv:"DIR" ~doc)
in
let doc = "make the current directory a repository" in
let exits = Term.default_exits in
let man = [
`S Manpage.s_description;
`P "Turns the current directory into a Darcs repository. Any
existing files and subdirectories become ...";
`Blocks help_secs; ]
in
Term.(const initialize $ copts_t $ repodir),
Term.info "initialize" ~doc ~sdocs:Manpage.s_common_options ~exits ~man
let record_cmd =
let pname =
let doc = "Name of the patch." in
Arg.(value & opt (some string) None & info ["m"; "patch-name"] ~docv:"NAME"
~doc)
in
let author =
let doc = "Specifies the author's identity." in
Arg.(value & opt (some string) None & info ["A"; "author"] ~docv:"EMAIL"
~doc)
in
let all =
let doc = "Answer yes to all patches." in
Arg.(value & flag & info ["a"; "all"] ~doc)
in
let ask_deps =
let doc = "Ask for extra dependencies." in
Arg.(value & flag & info ["ask-deps"] ~doc)
in
let files = Arg.(value & (pos_all file) [] & info [] ~docv:"FILE or DIR") in
let doc = "create a patch from unrecorded changes" in
let exits = Term.default_exits in
let man =
[`S Manpage.s_description;
`P "Creates a patch from changes in the working tree. If you specify
a set of files ...";
`Blocks help_secs; ]
in
Term.(const record $ copts_t $ pname $ author $ all $ ask_deps $ files),
Term.info "record" ~doc ~sdocs:Manpage.s_common_options ~exits ~man
let help_cmd =
let topic =
let doc = "The topic to get help on. `topics' lists the topics." in
Arg.(value & pos 0 (some string) None & info [] ~docv:"TOPIC" ~doc)
in
let doc = "display help about darcs and darcs commands" in
let man =
[`S Manpage.s_description;
`P "Prints help about darcs commands and other subjects...";
`Blocks help_secs; ]
in
Term.(ret
(const help $ copts_t $ Arg.man_format $ Term.choice_names $topic)),
Term.info "help" ~doc ~exits:Term.default_exits ~man
let default_cmd =
let doc = "a revision control system" in
let sdocs = Manpage.s_common_options in
let exits = Term.default_exits in
let man = help_secs in
Term.(ret (const (fun _ -> `Help (`Pager, None)) $ copts_t)),
Term.info "darcs" ~version:"v1.0.4" ~doc ~sdocs ~exits ~man
let cmds = [initialize_cmd; record_cmd; help_cmd]
let () = Term.(exit @@ eval_choice default_cmd cmds)