NAME Options - A perl module to provide better support for command-line option parsing, hopefully better than GetOpts. SYNOPSIS use Options; $options = new Options(params => [ ['port', 'p', undef, 'The port to connect to.'], ['host', 'h', 'localhost', 'The host to connect to.'] ], flags => [ ['secure', 's', 'Use SSL for encryption.'], ['quit', 'q', 'Quit after connecting.'], ]); # Parse the default option source (@ARGV) %results = $options->get_options(); # Provide usage if($options->get_result('help')){ $options->print_usage(); exit(1); } CONTENTS Options 1.5.2 DESCRIPTION Options was created to somewhat emulate the syntax of the Twisted Python's core usage library of the same name. It provides a parser for command-line options that is integrated with an automatic usage generator. Support exists for both flags and parameters, in long and short form, required parameters, and default params. EXPORT None by default. GETTING OPTIONS new Options() Create a new instance of the Options class. To do so, pass the constructor two optional, named arguments. 'params' are command-line switches with arguments, while flags are boolean switches. (duh.) Each argument consists of an anonymous array reference which contains an anonymous array for each option you wish to support. Params arrays must be four elements long, consisting of the long and short versions of the switch, a default value, and a description to be printed in the usage guide. If the default value is specified as "undef", it becomes a required value, and the program will not continue without it. Options without defaults can specify the empty string ("") to omit the default. Flags arrays are simpler, and omit the default element. $options->get_options() This method is called with no arguments, and begins the parsing of the global variable @ARGV, or an array passed as the first argument to the function. When finished, it returns a hash where the keys are the long option names, and the values are the result of the parse, i.e., strings for params, and boolean values (1 or 0 actually) for flag-type options. If the parser encounters an unknown flag, or a bare word without a recognized switch before it, these are left in the @ARV array in the order they are found, so that a script can do additional processing of @ARGV. If the result is missing a required parameter, the module prints the usage table, and exits with a 1 status code. $options->get_result(option) Although get_options returns a hash, and that is an acceptable way to use the results, this function provides some level of convenience when dealing with options that may return a reference to a list of results for that option. When called in a list context, this will return a list of results, even if only one argument was provided. However, calling it in a scalar context when there are multiple arguments will be, shall we say, disappointing. $options->print_usage($optional_message) Options will automatically display usage information if a required parameter is omitted, but this method can be used to implement a --help parameter. AUTHOR Phil Christensen, COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE Copyright (C) 2005-2007 by Phil Christensen This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.6 or, at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.