clap

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Command Line Argument Parser for Rust

It is a simple-to-use, efficient, and full-featured library for parsing command line arguments and subcommands when writing console/terminal applications.

IMPORTANT! This readme describes clap v3.0.0 which is still under development and will be published soon-ish. It was not published on crates.io yet, and if you want to use this preview anyway, use toml,no_sync clap = { git = "https://github.com/clap-rs/clap/" }

If you're looking for the readme for clap v2.33 - find it on github, crates.io, docs.rs.

Table of Contents

Created by gh-md-toc

What's New

Here's whats new in 3.0.0-alpha.1:

For full details, see CHANGELOG.md

About

clap is used to parse and validate the string of command line arguments provided by a user at runtime. You provide the list of valid possibilities, and clap handles the rest. This means you focus on your applications functionality, and less on the parsing and validating of arguments.

clap provides many things 'for free' (with no configuration) including the traditional version and help switches (or flags) along with associated messages. If you are using subcommands, clap will also auto-generate a help subcommand and separate associated help messages.

Once clap parses the user provided string of arguments, it returns the matches along with any applicable values. If the user made an error or typo, clap informs them with a friendly message and exits gracefully (or returns a Result type and allows you to perform any clean up prior to exit). Because of this, you can make reasonable assumptions in your code about the validity of the arguments prior to your applications main execution.

FAQ

For a full FAQ and more in depth details, see the wiki page

Comparisons

First, let me say that these comparisons are highly subjective, and not meant in a critical or harsh manner. All the argument parsing libraries out there (to include clap) have their own strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes it just comes down to personal taste when all other factors are equal. When in doubt, try them all and pick one that you enjoy :) There's plenty of room in the Rust community for multiple implementations!

How does clap compare to structopt?

Simple! clap is structopt. With the 3.0 release, clap imported the structopt code into it's own codebase as the clap_derive crate. Since structopt already used clap under the hood, the transition was nearly painless, and is 100% feature compatible.

If you were using structopt before, the only thing you should have to do is change the attributes from #[structopt(...)] to #[clap(...)].

Also the derive statements changed from #[derive(Structopt)] to #[derive(Clap)]. There is also some additional functionality that's been added to the clap_derive crate. See the documentation for that crate, for more details.

How does clap compare to getopts?

getopts is a very basic, fairly minimalist argument parsing library. This isn't a bad thing, sometimes you don't need tons of features, you just want to parse some simple arguments, and have some help text generated for you based on valid arguments you specify. The downside to this approach is that you must manually implement most of the common features (such as checking to display help messages, usage strings, etc.). If you want a highly custom argument parser, and don't mind writing the majority of the functionality yourself, getopts is an excellent base.

getopts also doesn't allocate much, or at all. This gives it a very small performance boost. Although, as you start implementing additional features, that boost quickly disappears.

Personally, I find many, many uses of getopts are manually implementing features that clap provides by default. Using clap simplifies your codebase allowing you to focus on your application, and not argument parsing.

How does clap compare to docopt.rs?

I first want to say I'm a big a fan of BurntSushi's work, the creator of Docopt.rs. I aspire to produce the quality of libraries that this man does! When it comes to comparing these two libraries they are very different. docopt tasks you with writing a help message, and then it parses that message for you to determine all valid arguments and their use. Some people LOVE this approach, others do not. If you're willing to write a detailed help message, it's nice that you can stick that in your program and have docopt do the rest. On the downside, it's far less flexible.

docopt is also excellent at translating arguments into Rust types automatically. There is even a syntax extension which will do all this for you, if you're willing to use a nightly compiler (use of a stable compiler requires you to somewhat manually translate from arguments to Rust types). To use BurntSushi's words, docopt is also a sort of black box. You get what you get, and it's hard to tweak implementation or customize the experience for your use case.

Because docopt is doing a ton of work to parse your help messages and determine what you were trying to communicate as valid arguments, it's also one of the more heavy weight parsers performance-wise. For most applications this isn't a concern and this isn't to say docopt is slow, in fact far from it. This is just something to keep in mind while comparing.

All else being equal, what are some reasons to use clap? (The Pitch)

clap is as fast, and as lightweight as possible while still giving all the features you'd expect from a modern argument parser. In fact, for the amount and type of features clap offers it remains about as fast as getopts. If you use clap when just need some simple arguments parsed, you'll find it's a walk in the park. clap also makes it possible to represent extremely complex, and advanced requirements, without too much thought. clap aims to be intuitive, easy to use, and fully capable for wide variety use cases and needs.

All else being equal, what are some reasons not to use clap? (The Anti Pitch)

Depending on the style in which you choose to define the valid arguments, clap can be very verbose. clap also offers so many finetuning knobs and dials, that learning everything can seem overwhelming. I strive to keep the simple cases simple, but when turning all those custom dials it can get complex. clap is also opinionated about parsing. Even though so much can be tweaked and tuned with clap (and I'm adding more all the time), there are still certain features which clap implements in specific ways which may be contrary to some users use-cases. Finally, clap is "stringly typed" when referring to arguments which can cause typos in code. This particular paper-cut is being actively worked on, and should be gone in v3.x.

Features

Below are a few of the features which clap supports, full descriptions and usage can be found in the documentation and examples/ directory

Quick Example

The following examples show a quick example of some of the very basic functionality of clap. For more advanced usage, such as requirements, conflicts, groups, multiple values and occurrences see the documentation, examples/ directory of this repository or the video tutorials.

NOTE: All of these examples are functionally the same, but show different styles in which to use clap. These different styles are purely a matter of personal preference.

The first example shows the simplest way to use clap, by defining a struct. If you're familiar with the structopt crate you're in luck, it's the same! (In fact it's the exact same code running under the covers!)

```rust // (Full example with detailed comments in examples/01dquickexample.rs) // // This example demonstrates clap's full 'custom derive' style of creating arguments which is the // simplest method of use, but sacrifices some flexibility. use clap::Clap;

/// This doc string acts as a help message when the user runs '--help' /// as do all doc strings on fields

[derive(Clap)]

[clap(version = "1.0", author = "Kevin K.")]

struct Opts { /// Sets a custom config file. Could have been an Option with no default too #[clap(short = "c", long = "config", defaultvalue = "default.conf")] config: String, /// Some input. Because this isn't an Option it's required to be used input: String, /// A level of verbosity, and can be used multiple times #[clap(short = "v", long = "verbose", parse(fromoccurrences))] verbose: i32, #[clap(subcommand)] subcmd: SubCommand, }

[derive(Clap)]

enum SubCommand { /// A help message for the Test subcommand #[clap(name = "test", version = "1.3", author = "Someone Else")] Test(Test), }

/// A subcommand for controlling testing

[derive(Clap)]

struct Test { /// Print debug info #[clap(short = "d")] debug: bool }

fn main() { let opts: Opts = Opts::parse();

// Gets a value for config if supplied by user, or defaults to "default.conf"
println!("Value for config: {}", opts.config);
println!("Using input file: {}", opts.input);

// Vary the output based on how many times the user used the "verbose" flag
// (i.e. 'myprog -v -v -v' or 'myprog -vvv' vs 'myprog -v'
match opts.verbose {
    0 => println!("No verbose info"),
    1 => println!("Some verbose info"),
    2 => println!("Tons of verbose info"),
    3 | _ => println!("Don't be crazy"),
}

// You can handle information about subcommands by requesting their matches by name
// (as below), requesting just the name used, or both at the same time
match opts.subcmd {
    SubCommand::Test(t) => {
        if t.debug {
            println!("Printing debug info...");
        } else {
            println!("Printing normally...");
        }
    }
}

// more program logic goes here...

} ```

This second method shows a method using the 'Builder Pattern' which allows more advanced configuration options (not shown in this small example), or even dynamically generating arguments when desired. The downside is it's more verbose.

```rust // (Full example with detailed comments in examples/01aquickexample.rs) // // This example demonstrates clap's "builder pattern" method of creating arguments // which the most flexible, but also most verbose. extern crate clap; use clap::{Arg, App, SubCommand};

fn main() { let matches = App::new("My Super Program") .version("1.0") .author("Kevin K. kbknapp@gmail.com") .about("Does awesome things") .arg(Arg::withname("config") .short('c') .long("config") .valuename("FILE") .help("Sets a custom config file") .takesvalue(true)) .arg(Arg::withname("INPUT") .help("Sets the input file to use") .required(true) .index(1)) .arg(Arg::withname("v") .short('v') .multiple(true) .help("Sets the level of verbosity")) .subcommand(SubCommand::withname("test") .about("controls testing features") .version("1.3") .author("Someone E. someone_else@other.com") .arg(Arg::withname("debug") .short('d') .help("print debug information verbosely"))) .getmatches();

// Same as above examples...

} ```

The next example shows a far less verbose method, but sacrifices some of the advanced configuration options (not shown in this small example). This method also takes a very minor runtime penalty.

```rust // (Full example with detailed comments in examples/01aquickexample.rs) // // This example demonstrates clap's "usage strings" method of creating arguments // which is less verbose extern crate clap; use clap::{Arg, App, SubCommand};

fn main() { let matches = App::new("myapp") .version("1.0") .author("Kevin K. kbknapp@gmail.com") .about("Does awesome things") .argsfromusage( "-c, --config=[FILE] 'Sets a custom config file' 'Sets the input file to use' -v... 'Sets the level of verbosity'") .subcommand(SubCommand::withname("test") .about("controls testing features") .version("1.3") .author("Someone E. someone_else@other.com") .arg("-d, --debug 'Print debug information'")) .getmatches();

// Same as previous example...

} ```

This third method shows how you can use a YAML file to build your CLI and keep your Rust source tidy or support multiple localized translations by having different YAML files for each localization.

First, create the cli.yml file to hold your CLI options, but it could be called anything we like:

yaml name: myapp version: "1.0" author: Kevin K. <kbknapp@gmail.com> about: Does awesome things args: - config: short: c long: config value_name: FILE help: Sets a custom config file takes_value: true - INPUT: help: Sets the input file to use required: true index: 1 - verbose: short: v multiple: true help: Sets the level of verbosity subcommands: - test: about: controls testing features version: "1.3" author: Someone E. <someone_else@other.com> args: - debug: short: d help: print debug information

Since this feature requires additional dependencies that not everyone may want, it is not compiled in by default and we need to enable a feature flag in Cargo.toml:

Simply change your clap = "3.0.0-beta.1" to clap = {version = "3.0.0-beta.1", features = ["yaml"]}.

Finally we create our main.rs file just like we would have with the previous two examples:

```rust // (Full example with detailed comments in examples/17yaml.rs) // // This example demonstrates clap's building from YAML style of creating arguments which is far // more clean, but takes a very small performance hit compared to the other two methods. use clap::{App, loadyaml};

fn main() { // The YAML file is found relative to the current file, similar to how modules are found let yaml = loadyaml!("cli.yml"); let matches = App::from(yaml).getmatches();

// Same as previous examples...

} ```

If you were to compile any of the above programs and run them with the flag --help or -h (or help subcommand, since we defined test as a subcommand) the following would be output (except the first example where the help message sort of explains the Rust code).

```sh $ myprog --help My Super Program 1.0 Kevin K. kbknapp@gmail.com Does awesome things

ARGS: INPUT The input file to use

USAGE: MyApp [FLAGS] [OPTIONS] [SUBCOMMAND]

FLAGS: -h, --help Prints help information -v Sets the level of verbosity -V, --version Prints version information

OPTIONS: -c, --config Sets a custom config file

SUBCOMMANDS: help Prints this message or the help of the given subcommand(s) test Controls testing features ```

NOTE: You could also run myapp test --help or myapp help test to see the help message for the test subcommand.

Try it!

Pre-Built Test

To try out the pre-built examples, use the following steps:

BYOB (Build Your Own Binary)

To test out clap's default auto-generated help/version follow these steps: * Create a new cargo project $ cargo new fake --bin && cd fake * Add clap to your Cargo.toml

toml [dependencies] clap = "3.0.0-beta.1"

```rust use clap::{App, Clap};

[derive(Clap)]

[clap(version = "v1.0-beta")]

/// My First clap CLI! struct Opts;

fn main() { Opts::parse(); } ```

Usage

For full usage, add clap as a dependency in your Cargo.toml () to use from crates.io:

toml [dependencies] clap = "~3.0.0-beta.1"

(note: If you are concerned with supporting a minimum version of Rust that is older than the current stable Rust minus 2 stable releases, it's recommended to use the ~major.minor.patch style versions in your Cargo.toml which will only update the patch version automatically. For more information see the Compatibility Policy)

Then add extern crate clap; to your crate root.

Define a list of valid arguments for your program (see the documentation or examples/ directory of this repo)

Then run cargo build or cargo update && cargo build for your project.

Optional Dependencies / Features

Features enabled by default

To disable these, add this to your Cargo.toml:

toml [dependencies.clap] version = "3.0.0-beta.1" default-features = false

You can also selectively enable only the features you'd like to include, by adding:

```toml [dependencies.clap] version = "3.0.0-beta.1" default-features = false

Cherry-pick the features you'd like to use

features = [ "suggestions", "color" ] ```

Opt-in features

Dependencies Tree

@TODO-v3-beta: update

More Information

You can find complete documentation on the docs.rs for this project.

You can also find usage examples in the examples/ directory of this repo.

Video Tutorials

There's also the video tutorial series Argument Parsing with Rust v2.

These videos slowly trickle out as I finish them and currently a work in progress.

How to Contribute

Details on how to contribute can be found in the CONTRIBUTING.md file.

Compatibility Policy

Because clap takes SemVer and compatibility seriously, this is the official policy regarding breaking changes and minimum required versions of Rust.

clap will pin the minimum required version of Rust to the CI builds. Bumping the minimum version of Rust is considered a minor breaking change, meaning at a minimum the minor version of clap will be bumped.

In order to keep from being surprised of breaking changes, it is highly recommended to use the ~major.minor.patch style in your Cargo.toml only if you wish to target a version of Rust that is older than current stable minus two releases:

toml [dependencies] clap = "~3.0.0-beta.1"

This will cause only the patch version to be updated upon a cargo update call, and therefore cannot break due to new features, or bumped minimum versions of Rust.

Warning about '~' Dependencies

Using ~ can cause issues in certain circumstances.

From @alexcrichton:

Right now Cargo's version resolution is pretty naive, it's just a brute-force search of the solution space, returning the first resolvable graph. This also means that it currently won't terminate until it proves there is not possible resolvable graph. This leads to situations where workspaces with multiple binaries, for example, have two different dependencies such as:

```toml,no_sync

In one Cargo.toml

[dependencies] clap = "~3.0.0-beta.1"

In another Cargo.toml

[dependencies] clap = "3.0.0-beta.1" ```

This is inherently an unresolvable crate graph in Cargo right now. Cargo requires there's only one major version of a crate, and being in the same workspace these two crates must share a version. This is impossible in this location, though, as these version constraints cannot be met.

Minimum Supported Version of Rust (MSRV)

clap will officially support current stable Rust, minus two releases, but may work with prior releases as well. For example, current stable Rust at the time of this writing is 1.38.0, meaning clap is guaranteed to compile with 1.36.0 and beyond.

At the 1.39.0 stable release, clap will be guaranteed to compile with 1.37.0 and beyond, etc.

Upon bumping the minimum version of Rust (assuming it's within the stable-2 range), it must be clearly annotated in the CHANGELOG.md

The following is a list of the minimum required version of Rust to compile clap by our MAJOR.MINOR version number (generated by cargo-msrv-table):

|clap| MSRV | |---| --- | |2.33| 1.24.1| |2.32| 1.24.1| |2.31| 1.24.1| |2.30| 1.24.1| |2.29| 1.24.1| |2.28| 1.24.1| |2.27| 1.24.1| |2.26| 1.24.1| |2.25| 1.24.1| |2.24| 1.24.1| |2.23| 1.24.1| |2.22| 1.24.1| |2.21| 1.24.1| |2.20| 1.21.0| |2.19| 1.12.1| |2.18| 1.12.1| |2.17| 1.12.1| |2.16| 1.12.1| |2.15| 1.12.1| |2.14| 1.12.1| |2.13| 1.12.1| |2.12| 1.12.1| |2.11| 1.12.1| |2.10| 1.12.1| |2.9| 1.12.1| |2.8| 1.12.1| |2.7| 1.12.1| |2.6| 1.12.1| |2.5| 1.12.1| |2.4| 1.12.1| |2.3| 1.12.1| |2.2| 1.12.1| |2.1| 1.6.0| |2.0| 1.4.0| |1.5| 1.4.0| |1.4| 1.2.0| |1.3| 1.1.0| |1.2| 1.1.0| |1.1| 1.0.0| |1.0| 1.0.0|

Breaking Changes

clap takes a similar policy to Rust and will bump the major version number upon breaking changes with only the following exceptions:

License

clap is distributed under the terms of both the MIT license and the Apache License (Version 2.0).

See the LICENSE-APACHE and LICENSE-MIT files in this repository for more information.

Related Crates

There are several excellent crates which can be used with clap, I recommend checking them all out! If you've got a crate that would be a good fit to be used with clap open an issue and let me know, I'd love to add it!

Recent Breaking Changes

clap follows semantic versioning, so breaking changes should only happen upon major version bumps. The only exception to this rule is breaking changes that happen due to implementation that was deemed to be a bug, security concerns, or it can be reasonably proved to affect no code. For the full details, see CHANGELOG.md.

As of 2.27.0:

As of 2.0.0 (From 1.x)

Deprecations

Old method names will be left around for several minor version bumps, or one major version bump.

As of 2.27.0: