CLArguments

A flexible and extensible utility for defining and then parsing command line arguments in Java

Features:-

• Flexible - supports standard space delimited args or name=value style args with optional, defineable argument name prefixing and suffixing
• Extensible - use pre-defined argument types (string, integer, double, etc.) or define your own
• Mandatory argument support
• Custom argument value converters and validators
• Support for flag and informational (e.g. -help) arguments
• Alternative argument name support (e.g. -help, -h)
• Supports multi-valued arguments (i.e. same argument specified multiple times with different values)
• Default values (when an argument isn't specified)
• User friendly (show immediate exceptions during parsing or list out all exceptions found at end of parsing)
• In-built help display
• Argument definitions clearly coded - not encoded into special strings!

Quick Start

import com.adeptions.clarguments.*;
import com.adeptions.clarguments.definitions.*;

public class MyApplication {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // define the command line arguments expected/accepted...
        ArgumentDefinitions argumentDefinitions = new ArgumentDefinitions(
                new StringArgumentDefinition("say", "What to say").makeMandatory(),
                new InformationalArgumentDefinition(new String[] {"help", "h"}, "Display this help")
        );

        try {
            // parse the command line args...
            Arguments arguments = argumentDefinitions.parseArgs(args);

            if (!arguments.anythingSeen() || arguments.get("help").isSpecified()) {
                // the user didn't specify any args or asked for help...
                System.out.println("My application accepts the following arguments:-");
                System.out.println(argumentDefinitions.getHelp());
            } else if (arguments.hasParsingExceptions()) {
                // there were some problems with the args...
                for (BadArgumentException badArgumentException: arguments.getParsingExceptions()) {
                    System.err.println(badArgumentException.getMessage());
                }
            } else {
                // run the actual application...
                System.out.println("You asked me to say... '" + arguments.get("say").getValue() + "'");
            }
        } catch (BadArgumentException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Javadocs

see CLArguments javadocs