readme.md

cliclopts

Command line options helper and usage printer, works well with minimist, inspired by nomnom

usage

Define the allowed options in an array and pass it to 'cliclopts'

var cliclopts = require('cliclopts')

var options = [
  {
    name: 'verbose',
    abbr: 'v',
    alias: ['loud'],
    boolean: true,
    help: 'be verbose'
  },
  {
    name: 'path',
    abbr: 'p',
    default: './dat.json',
    help: 'path to file'
  }
]

var cliOpts = cliclopts(options)

cliclopts(options)

options is an array of objects with the following possible keys:

• name primary name of option
• abbr one character alias of the option
• alias other options treated as alias
• boolean if true the option is seen as a boolean flag
• help usage string for the option
• default default value of the option

cliOpts.usage()

Returns the usage information as string:

--verbose, -v         be verbose
--path, -p            path to file (default: "dat.json")

cliOpts.print()

Prints the usage information.

cliOpts.boolean()

Returns Array of all command names that are specified as boolean.

cliOpts.alias()

Returns Object with command names as keys and alias list as value (including abbr)

cliOpts.default()

Returns Object with command names as keys and default values as values.

cliOpts.options()

Returns

{
  alias: cliOpts.alias(),
  boolean: cliOpts.boolean(),
  default: cliOpts.default()
}

Example usage with minimist

var allowedOptions = [
  {
    name: 'verbose',
    abbr: 'v',
    alias: ['cry-at-me'],
    boolean: true,
    help: 'be verbose'
  },
  {
    name: 'path',
    abbr: 'p',
    help: 'path to the file'
  },
  {
    name: 'help',
    abbr: 'h',
    help: 'show help',
    boolean: true
  }
]

var cliOpts = require('cliclopts')(allowedOptions)

var argv = require('minimist')(process.argv.slice(2), cliOpts.options())

if (argv.help) {
  console.log('Usage: command [options]')
  cliOpts.print()
  process.exit()
}

yourprogram(argv)