Manual Reference Pages - set_args (3m_cli2)

NAME

set_args(3f) - [ARGUMENTS:M_CLI2] command line argument parsing (LICENSE:PD)

Synopsis
Description
Options
Defining The Prototype
Usage Notes
Example
Response Files
Specification For Response Files
Author
License

SYNOPSIS

subroutine set_args(prototype,help_text,version_text,ierr,errmsg)

     character(len=*),intent(in),optional              :: prototype
     character(len=*),intent(in),optional              :: help_text(:)
     character(len=*),intent(in),optional              :: version_text(:)
     integer,intent(out),optional                      :: ierr
     character(len=:),intent(out),allocatable,optional :: errmsg

DESCRIPTION

SET_ARGS(3f) requires a unix-like command prototype which defines the command-line options and their default values. When the program is executed this and the command-line options are applied and the resulting values are placed in an internal table for retrieval via GET_ARGS(3f).
The built-in --help and --version options require optional help_text and version_text values to be provided to be particularly useful.

OPTIONS

PROTOTYPE
composed of all command arguments concatenated into a Unix-like command prototype string. For example:
                call set_args(’-L F --ints 1,2,3 --title "my title" -R 10.3’)
Note that the following options are predefined for all commands:
                   --verbose F --usage F --help F --version F
see "DEFINING THE PROTOTYPE" in the next section for further details.
HELP_TEXT
if present, will be displayed when the program is called with a --help switch, and then the program will terminate. If help text is not supplied the command line initialization string will be echoed.

VERSION_TEXT
if present, any version text defined will be displayed when the program is called with a --version switch, and then the program will terminate.

IERR if present a non-zero option is returned when an error occurs instead of the program terminating.

ERRMSG a description of the error if ierr is present.

DEFINING THE PROTOTYPE

o Keywords start with a single dash for short single-character keywords, and with two dashes for longer keywords.

o all keywords on the prototype MUST get a value.

o logicals must be set to an unquoted F.

o strings must be delimited with double-quotes. Since internal double-quotes are represented with two double-quotes the string must be at least one space.

o numeric keywords are not allowed; but this allows negative numbers to be used as values.

o lists of values should be comma-delimited unless a user-specified delimiter is used. The prototype must use the same array delimiters as the call to get the value.

o to define a zero-length allocatable array make the value a delimiter (usually a comma) or an empty set of braces ("[]").

LONG AND SHORT NAMES

Long keywords start with two dashes followed by more than one letter. Short keywords are a dash followed by a single letter.

o It is recommended long names (--keyword) should be all lowercase but are case-sensitive by default, unless "set_mode(’ignorelongcase’)" or "set_mode(’ignoreallcase’)" is in effect.

o Long names should always be more than one character.

o The recommended way to have short names is to suffix the long name with :LETTER in the definition.
If this syntax is used then logical shorts may be combined on the command line when "set_mode(’strict’)" is in effect.

SPECIAL BEHAVIORS

o A special behavior occurs if a keyword name ends in ::. When the program is called the next parameter is taken as a value even if it starts with -. This is not generally needed but is useful in rare cases where non-numeric values starting with a dash are desired.
o
If the prototype ends with "--" a special mode is turned on where anything after "--" on input goes into the variable REMAINING with values double-quoted and also into the array ARGS instead of becoming elements in the UNNAMED array. This is not needed for normal processing, but was needed for a program that needed this behavior for its subcommands.
That is, for a normal call all unnamed values go into UNNAMED and ARGS and REMAINING are ignored. So for
         call set_args(’-x 10 -y 20 ’)
A program invocation such as
         xx a b c -- A B C " dd "
results in
      UNNAMED= [’a’,’b’,’c’,’A’,’B’,’C’,’ dd’]
      REMAINING= ’’
      ARGS= [character(len=0) :: ] ! ie, an empty character array
Whereas
      call set_args(’-x 10 -y 20 --’)
generates the following output from the same program execution:
      UNNAMED= [’a’,’b’,’c’]
      REMAINING= ’"A" "B" "C" " dd "’
      ARGS= [’A’,’B’,’C,’ dd’]

USAGE NOTES

When invoking the program line note the following restrictions (which often differ between various command-line parsers and are subject to change):

o By defaul tvalues for duplicate keywords are appended together with a space separator.

o shuffling is not supported. Values immediately follow their keywords.

o Only short Boolean keywords can be bundled together. If allowing bundling is desired call "set_mode(’strict’)". This will require prefixing long names with "--" and short names with "-". Otherwise M_CLI2 relaxes that requirement and mostly does not care what prefix is used for a keyword. But this would make it unclear what was meant by "-ox" if allowed options were "-o F -x F --ox F " for example, so "strict" mode is required to remove the ambiguity.

o if a parameter value of just "-" is supplied it is converted to the string "stdin".

o values not needed for a keyword value go into the character array "UNNAMED".
In addition if the keyword "--" is encountered on the command line the rest of the command line goes into the character array "UNNAMED".

EXAMPLE

Sample program:

    program demo_set_args
    use M_CLI2,  only : filenames=>unnamed, set_args, get_args
    use M_CLI2,  only : get_args_fixed_size
    implicit none
    integer                      :: i
    ! DEFINE ARGS
    real                         :: x, y, z
    real                         :: p(3)
    character(len=:),allocatable :: title
    logical                      :: l, lbig
    integer,allocatable          :: ints(:)
    !
    !  DEFINE COMMAND (TO SET INITIAL VALUES AND ALLOWED KEYWORDS)
    !  AND READ COMMAND LINE
    call set_args(’ &
       ! reals
       & -x 1 -y 2.3 -z 3.4e2 &
       ! integer array
       & -p -1,-2,-3 &
       ! always double-quote strings
       & --title "my title" &
       ! string should be a single character at a minimum
       & --label " ", &
       ! set all logical values to F
       & -l F -L F &
       ! set allocatable size to zero if you like by using a delimiter
       & --ints , &
       & ’)
    ! ASSIGN VALUES TO ELEMENTS
    !     SCALARS
    call get_args(’x’,x)
    call get_args(’y’,y)
    call get_args(’z’,z)
    call get_args(’l’,l)
    call get_args(’L’,lbig)
    call get_args(’ints’,ints)      ! ALLOCATABLE ARRAY
    call get_args(’title’,title)    ! ALLOCATABLE STRING
    call get_args_fixed_size(’p’,p) ! NON-ALLOCATABLE ARRAY
    ! USE VALUES
    write(*,*)’x=’,x
    write(*,*)’y=’,y
    write(*,*)’z=’,z
    write(*,*)’p=’,p
    write(*,*)’title=’,title
    write(*,*)’ints=’,ints
    write(*,*)’l=’,l
    write(*,*)’L=’,lbig
    ! UNNAMED VALUES
    if(size(filenames) > 0)then
       write(*,’(i6.6,3a)’)(i,’[’,filenames(i),’]’,i=1,size(filenames))
    endif
    end program demo_set_args

RESPONSE FILES

If you have no interest in using external files as abbreviations you can ignore this section. Otherwise, before calling set_args(3f) add:
    use M_CLI2, only : set_mode
    call set_mode(’response_file’)
M_CLI2 Response files are small files containing CLI (Command Line Interface) arguments that end with ".rsp" that can be used when command lines are so long that they would exceed line length limits or so complex that it is useful to have a platform-independent method of creating an abbreviation.
Shell aliases and scripts are often used for similar purposes (and allow for much more complex conditional execution, of course), but they generally cannot be used to overcome line length limits and are typically platform-specific.
Examples of commands that support similar response files are the Clang and Intel compilers, although there is no standard format for the files.
They are read if you add options of the syntax "@NAME" as the FIRST parameters on your program command line calls. They are not recursive -- that is, an option in a response file cannot be given the value "@NAME2" to call another response file.
More than one response name may appear on a command line.
They are case-sensitive names.
Note "@" is a special character in Powershell, and there requires being escaped with a grave character or placed in double-quotes if the name is alphanumeric (using names like "a-b" or other non-alphanumeric characters also prevents the "@" from being treated specially). To accomodate this the "@" character may alternatively appear on the end of the name instead of the beginning. It will be internally moved to the beginning before processing commences.
It is not recommended in general but the response name prefix may be changed via the environment variable CLI_RESPONSE_PREFIX if in an environment preventing the use of the "@" character. Typically "^" or "%" or "_" are unused characters. In the very worst case an arbitrary string is allowed such as "rsp_".

LOCATING RESPONSE FILES

A search for the response file always starts with the current directory. The search then proceeds to look in any additional directories specified with the colon-delimited environment variable CLI_RESPONSE_PATH.
The first resource file found that results in lines being processed will be used and processing stops after that first match is found. If no match is found an error occurs and the program is stopped.

RESPONSE FILE SECTIONS

A simple response file just has options for calling the program in it prefixed with the word "options". But they can also contain section headers to denote selections that are only executed when a specific OS is being used, print messages, and execute system commands.

SEARCHING FOR OSTYPE IN REGULAR FILES

So assuming the name @NAME was specified on the command line a file named NAME.rsp will be searched for in all the search directories and then in that file a string that starts with the string @OSTYPE (if the environment variables $OS and $OSTYPE are not blank. $OSTYPE takes precedence over $OS).

SEARCHING FOR UNLABELED DIRECTIVES IN REGULAR FILES

Then, the same files will be searched for lines above any line starting with "@". That is, if there is no special section for the current OS it just looks at the top of the file for unlabeled options.

SEARCHING FOR OSTYPE AND NAME IN THE COMPOUND FILE

In addition or instead of files with the same name as the @NAME option on the command line, you can have one file named after the executable name that contains multiple abbreviation names.
So if your program executable is named EXEC you create a single file called EXEC.rsp and can append all the simple files described above separating them with lines of the form @OSTYPE@NAME or just @NAME.
So if no specific file for the abbreviation is found a file called "EXEC.rsp" is searched for where "EXEC" is the name of the executable. This file is always a "compound" response file that uses the following format:
Any compound EXEC.rsp file found in the current or searched directories will be searched for the string @OSTYPE@NAME first.
Then if nothing is found, the less specific line @NAME is searched for.

THE SEARCH IS OVER

Sounds complicated but actually works quite intuitively. Make a file in the current directory and put options in it and it will be used. If that file ends up needing different cases for different platforms add a line like "@Linux" to the file and some more lines and that will only be executed if the environment variable OSTYPE or OS is "Linux". If no match is found for named sections the lines at the top before any "@" lines will be used as a default if no match is found.
If you end up using a lot of files like this you can combine them all together and put them into a file called "program_name".rsp and just put lines like @NAME or @OSTYPE@NAME at that top of each selection.
Now, back to the details on just what you can put in the files.

SPECIFICATION FOR RESPONSE FILES

SIMPLE RESPONSE FILES

The first word of a line is special and has the following meanings:

options|- Command options following the rules of the SET_ARGS(3f) prototype. So o It is preferred to specify a value for all options. o double-quote strings. o give a blank string value as " ". o use F|T for lists of logicals, o lists of numbers should be comma-delimited. o --usage, --help, --version, --verbose, and unknown options are ignored.

comment|# Line is a comment line system|! System command. System commands are executed as a simple call to system (so a cd(1) or setting a shell variable would not effect subsequent lines, for example) BEFORE the command being processed. print|> Message to screen stop display message and stop program.

NOTE: system commands are executed when encountered, but options are gathered from multiple option lines and passed together at the end of processing of the block; so all commands will be executed BEFORE the command for which options are being supplied no matter where they occur.

So if a program that does nothing but echos its parameters

   program testit
   use M_CLI2, only : set_args, rget, sget, lget, set_mode
   implicit none
      real :: x,y                           ; namelist/args/ x,y
      character(len=:),allocatable :: title ; namelist/args/ title
      logical :: big                        ; namelist/args/ big
      call set_mode(’response_file’)
      call set_args(’-x 10.0 -y 20.0 --title "my title" --big F’)
      x=rget(’x’)
      y=rget(’y’)
      title=sget(’title’)
      big=lget(’big’)
      write(*,nml=args)
   end program testit

And a file in the current directory called "a.rsp" contains

# defaults for project A options -x 1000 -y 9999 options --title " " options --big T

The program could be called with

    $myprog     # normal call
     X=10.0 Y=20.0 TITLE="my title"

    $myprog @a  # change defaults as specified in "a.rsp"
    X=1000.0 Y=9999.0 TITLE=" "

    # change defaults but use any option as normal to override defaults
    $myprog @a -y 1234
     X=1000.0 Y=1234.0 TITLE=" "

COMPOUND RESPONSE FILES

A compound response file has the same basename as the executable with a ".rsp" suffix added. So if your program is named "myprg" the filename must be "myprg.rsp".
   Note that here ‘basename‘ means the last leaf of the
   name of the program as returned by the Fortran intrinsic
   GET_COMMAND_ARGUMENT(0,...) trimmed of anything after a period ("."),
   so it is a good idea not to use hidden files.
Unlike simple response files compound response files can contain multiple setting names.
Specifically in a compound file if the environment variable $OSTYPE (first) or $OS is set the first search will be for a line of the form (no leading spaces should be used):
   @OSTYPE@alias_name
If no match or if the environment variables $OSTYPE and $OS were not set or a match is not found then a line of the form
   @alias_name
is searched for in simple or compound files. If found subsequent lines will be ignored that start with "@" until a line not starting with "@" is encountered. Lines will then be processed until another line starting with "@" is found or end-of-file is encountered.

COMPOUND RESPONSE FILE EXAMPLE

An example compound file

################# @if > RUNNING TESTS USING RELEASE VERSION AND ifort options test --release --compiler ifort ################# @gf > RUNNING TESTS USING RELEASE VERSION AND gfortran options test --release --compiler gfortran ################# @nv > RUNNING TESTS USING RELEASE VERSION AND nvfortran options test --release --compiler nvfortran ################# @nag > RUNNING TESTS USING RELEASE VERSION AND nagfor options test --release --compiler nagfor # ################# # OS-specific example: @Linux@install # # install executables in directory (assuming install(1) exists) # system mkdir -p ~/.local/bin options run --release T --runner "install -vbp -m 0711 -t ~/.local/bin" @install STOP INSTALL NOT SUPPORTED ON THIS PLATFORM OR $OSTYPE NOT SET # ################# @fpm@testall # !fpm test --compiler nvfortran !fpm test --compiler ifort !fpm test --compiler gfortran !fpm test --compiler nagfor STOP tests complete. Any additional parameters were ignored #################

Would be used like

fpm @install fpm @nag -- fpm @testall

NOTES

The intel Fortran compiler now calls the response files "indirect files" and does not add the implied suffix ".rsp" to the files anymore. It also allows the @NAME syntax anywhere on the command line, not just at the beginning. -- 20201212

AUTHOR

John S. Urban, 2019

LICENSE

Public Domain

Nemo Release 3.1

set_args (3m_cli2)

August 01, 2024

Generated by manServer 1.08 from a18f71eb-8c8d-4582-bd4d-c7c26c8c5401 using man macros.

PROTOTYPE
	composed of all command arguments concatenated into a Unix-like command prototype string. For example:
call set_args(’-L F --ints 1,2,3 --title "my title" -R 10.3’) Note that the following options are predefined for all commands:
--verbose F --usage F --help F --version F see "DEFINING THE PROTOTYPE" in the next section for further details.
HELP_TEXT
	if present, will be displayed when the program is called with a --help switch, and then the program will terminate. If help text is not supplied the command line initialization string will be echoed.
VERSION_TEXT
	if present, any version text defined will be displayed when the program is called with a --version switch, and then the program will terminate.
IERR	if present a non-zero option is returned when an error occurs instead of the program terminating.
ERRMSG	a description of the error if ierr is present.

o	It is recommended long names (--keyword) should be all lowercase but are case-sensitive by default, unless "set_mode(’ignorelongcase’)" or "set_mode(’ignoreallcase’)" is in effect.
o	Long names should always be more than one character.
o	The recommended way to have short names is to suffix the long name with :LETTER in the definition. If this syntax is used then logical shorts may be combined on the command line when "set_mode(’strict’)" is in effect.

o	By defaul tvalues for duplicate keywords are appended together with a space separator.
o	shuffling is not supported. Values immediately follow their keywords.
o	Only short Boolean keywords can be bundled together. If allowing bundling is desired call "set_mode(’strict’)". This will require prefixing long names with "--" and short names with "-". Otherwise M_CLI2 relaxes that requirement and mostly does not care what prefix is used for a keyword. But this would make it unclear what was meant by "-ox" if allowed options were "-o F -x F --ox F " for example, so "strict" mode is required to remove the ambiguity.
o	if a parameter value of just "-" is supplied it is converted to the string "stdin".
o	values not needed for a keyword value go into the character array "UNNAMED". In addition if the keyword "--" is encountered on the command line the rest of the command line goes into the character array "UNNAMED".