README.md

Belafonte

This library is all about making command-line applications. It's a lot like GLI, methadone, Main, and the other options. This is just my take.

My goals in this:

• Make a system that suits my tastes
• Avoid magic
• Make apps easier to test (specifically with aruba in-process)

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'belafonte'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install belafonte

Usage

Belafonte can be used both to create traditional single-purpose applications (like cat, ls, make, etc), but it can also be used to create "command suite" applications (like git, rails, heroku, etc).

Traditional Applications

As mentioned above, "traditional" applications are single-purpose utilities. They tend to do one thing, with the goal of doing that one thing exceptionally well.

require 'belafonte'

class MyApp < Belafonte::App

  # Every Belafonte application must have a title.
  title "myapp"
  summary "A short description"
  description <<-DESCRIPTION
  This is a much longer description of the app, command, or what have you.
  DESCRIPTION

  # Switches are boolean flags that can be passed on the command line.
  # At least one short or long flag is required, but you can pass multiple
  # flags (without hyphens) for each if you like.

  switch :switch_name,              # name the switch
    short: 's',                     # short flags for the switch (array for 2+)
    long: 'switch',                 # long flag for the switch (array for 2+)
    description: 'This is a switch' # describe the switch (default '')

  # Options are flags that take an argument. The basic setup for this is the
  # same as that for switches, but with the additional requirement of a display
  # name for the option's argument.

  option :option_name,                # name the option
    short: 'o',                       # short flags (array for 2+)
    long: 'option',                   # long flags (array for 2+)
    description: 'This is an option', # describe the option (default: '')
    argument: 'option name'           # display name (required)

  # Args are actual arguments to the command. These require a name, and by
  # default are expected 1 time. You can specify any number of explicit
  # occurrences that are greater-than 0, and you can also make them unlimited,
  # but you're not allowed to add any further args after adding an unlimited
  # arg.

  arg :argument_name,
    times: 1

  arg :unlimited_argument,
    times: :unlimited

  # The `handle` method that you define for your app is the hook that Belafonte
  # uses to run your code. If you don't define this, your app won't actually
  # do much of anything.

  def handle

    # Do something if the :switch_name switch is active

    if switch_active(:switch_name)
      stdout.puts "Switch is active!"
    else
      stdout.puts "Switch is not active :/"
    end

    # Do something based on the options that came in
    stdout.puts "We got this option: #{option[:option]}"

    # Do something with the first argument we defined
    stdout.puts arg[:argument_name].first

    # Do something with the unlimited argument we defined
    arg[:unlimited_argument].each do |unlimited|
      stdout.puts "unlimited == '#{unlimited}'"
    end
  end
end

# Actually run the application. In addition to ARGV, the following .new args
# are defaulted:
#
# * stdin (default: STDIN)
# * stdout (default: STDOUT)
# * stderr (default: STDERR)
# * kernel (default: Kernel)
#
# Unfortunately, order matters, and you can't specify (say) kernel without
# first specifying the items that come before it.
#
# In a more perfect world, your executable file is basically just a require to
# pull in your app, then this line.

exit MyApp.new(ARGV).execute!

Command Suite Applications

Command suite applications (CSAs) are, in the simplest scenario, a collection of Traditional Applications that are collected under a wrapper to provide a uniform user interface.

Belafonte supports this sort of application through mounting, which is very similar in spirit to, say, mounting one Rack application under another. The API is the same as the Traditional App API with two exceptions:

• Use mount App to mount an application as a subcommand
• Apps that mount other apps cannot have :unlimited args

Here's an example:

require 'belafonte'

class InnerApp < Belafonte::App
  title "inner"

  def handle
    stdout.puts "This is the inner app"
  end
end

class OuterApp < Belafonte::App
  title "outer"

  mount InnerApp

  def handle
    stdout.puts "This is the outer app"
  end
end

exit OuterApp.new(ARGV).execute!

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release to create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Contributing

1. Fork it ( https://github.com/[my-github-username]/belafonte/fork )
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create a new Pull Request