cli-shezargs

A utility to make command-line shell args easy to use. (I should have called it "cli-sh-ez-args", but that seemed cumbersome.)

TL;DR

npm install -g cli-shezargs

And then:

#!/bin/bash -e

eval "$(cli-shezargs $@)"

Which parses your command-line args and creates bash variables (see below.) For example, --foo=bar will get you:

foo=bar

Overview

I always hated the boiler plate at the top of all of my shell scripts:

#!/bin/bash -e

# Helper functions
die() {
  echo "$@"
  exit 1
}

# ...

# parse args
for param in "$@"; do
  case $param in

    --service=*)
      service="${param#*=}"
      ;;

    # ...

  esac
done

# ...

Now, I can just:

#!/bin/bash -e

# parse args and setup common functions
eval "$(cli-shezargs $@)"

# ...

What You Get

The main benefit is that you will have variables set for each command-line argument. But you also get die() and some other functions.

# "--foo=quxx" becomes

foo="quxx"

# and "beanie --foo-be=bar baby --foo-it --baz- --foo=quxx -- --not-an-arg" becomes

foo_be="bar"
foo_it="1"
unset baz
foo="quxx"
set -- "beanie" "baby" "--not-an-arg"

That last line has the effect of setting $1 to "beanie", $2 to "baby", $3 to "--not-an-arg", and $# to 3.

Look at scripts/common.sh for the functions that you will have. Modify and submit a PR to add your favorites. :)

Options

# Easiest -- parses args and add helper functions from `scripts/common.sh`
eval "$(cli-shezargs $@)"

# Include file support
eval "$(cli-shezargs __f $$ $0 $@)"

# Really the easiest -- just gives scripts
eval "$(cli-shezargs)"

File support gets you:

• TMP_DIR, TMP_FILE, LOG_FILE, and JSON_FILE, which are set to newly-created temp files (in /tmp/... and using the PID to guarantee uniqueness).
• script_dir -- the dir for the bash script.

How To

You must have Node.js, and then:

Install:

npm install -g cli-shezargs

Put this snippet at the top of your scripts:

eval "$(cli-shezargs $@)"

And then use --this-style-of=command --line- --args