Parse command line argument by defining a struct. It combines clap with custom derive.
Find it on Docs.rs: structopt-derive and structopt.
Add clap
, structopt
and structop-derive
to your dependencies of your Cargo.toml
:
toml
[dependencies]
structopt = "0.0.3"
structopt-derive = "0.0.3"
And then, in your rust file: ```rust extern crate structopt;
extern crate structopt_derive;
use structopt::StructOpt;
struct Opt { /// A flag, true if used in the command line. #[structopt(short = "d", long = "debug", help = "Activate debug mode")] debug: bool,
/// An argument of type float, with a default value.
#[structopt(short = "s", long = "speed", help = "Set speed", default_value = "42")]
speed: f64,
/// Needed parameter, the first on the command line.
#[structopt(help = "Input file")]
input: String,
/// An optional parameter, will be `None` if not present on the
/// command line.
#[structopt(help = "Output file, stdout if not present")]
output: Option<String>,
}
fn main() { let opt = Opt::from_args(); println!("{:?}", opt); } ```
Using this example: ``` $ ./example error: The following required arguments were not provided:
USAGE: example [FLAGS] [OPTIONS] [ARGS]
For more information try --help $ ./example --help example 0.0.0 Guillaume Pinot texitoi@texitoi.eu An example of StructOpt usage.
USAGE: example [FLAGS] [OPTIONS] [ARGS]
FLAGS: -d, --debug Activate debug mode -h, --help Prints help information -V, --version Prints version information
OPTIONS:
-s, --speed
ARGS: Input file
I use docopt since a long time (pre rust 1.0). I really like the fact that you have a structure with the parsed argument: no need to convert String
to f64
, no useless unwrap
. But on the other hand, I don't like to write by hand the usage string. That's like going back to the golden age of WYSIWYG editors. Field naming is also a bit artificial.
Today, the new standard to read command line arguments in Rust is clap. This library is so feature full! But I think there is one downside: even if you can validate argument and expressing that an argument is required, you still need to transform something looking like a hashmap of string vectors to something useful for your application.
Now, there is stable custom derive. Thus I can add to clap the automatic conversion that I miss. Here is the result.