1 Aug
2021
1 Aug
'21
11:30 p.m.
On Sun, Aug 1, 2021 at 3:48 PM <arnold(a)skeeve.com> wrote:
I happen to like the getopt_long interface designed by
the GNU
project. It's easy to learn, setup and use. Once it's in place
it's set and forget.
I agree, and what is more, I say, it is a grammar already, if a simple
one. You declare what you accept and what's to be done, making it a DSL
expressed as an array of structs.
The only thing it lacks is that old getopt is a bag on the side rather than
being integrated: struct option should have an additional member "char
short_option", where '\0' means "no short option". Given that
feature and
three per-program values "progname" (argv[0] by default), "version",
and
"usage_string", the --version and --help options can be processed inside
getopt itself. I especially like that you pass per-option pointers saying
where to put the value, so no case statement required, just create some
global or local variables and pass in their addresses. Automatic support
for "--nofoo" given "--foo" would be good as well.