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cligen/wiki/Codebase/Command/Macro/argument.md
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2026-09-05 13:19:55 -05:00

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CliGen::Command.argument Macro

TOC

Overview

This macro as explained briefly in the Macros Doc, handles setting up and configuring instance variables & configuring instance variables & annotations as well as checking for misconfigurations in your provided macro arguments before you experience.

Overall this is used for annotating instance variables for the CliGen framework can know how to create your CliGen::Flag(T) objects.

class MyCmd < CliGen::Command
  argument(myvar : String = "test",
          short: "-m",
          long: "--myvar",
          description: "This is my test flag",
          options: %w[ test test2 test3 ]
  )

  def main 
    puts "@myvar was #{@myvar}"
  end
end

Caveots

Dedicated short & long flasg

A unfortunate limitation is that the -h|--help & -v|--verbose flags are all allocated to two internal flags used by all CommandNode(T) objects

Duplicate Short Flags

While this is limited to Flags defined in your Command

Arguments

short:

Type: StringLiteral Required: false

This represents the short form of the flag bring provided. it is optional as not all flags have to have a short form flag.

long:

Type: StringLiteral Required: true*

This represents the long-form of the flag. It is required in order to generate the Flag(T).

description:

Type: StringLiteral Required: true

This is the description of your flag and is required for Flag(T) creation

delimiter:

Type: StringLiteral Required: false

For Flag(Array(T)) flags this is the delimiter that will seperate any inline args (ex: "," will split "a,b,c") provided at the commandline. If nil/not provided, the framework will default to ',' as this is the usual choice.

env_var:

Type: StringLiteral Required: false

This is the ENV VAR that can be used to specify your flag value when not provided by the user.

validation:

Type: ProcLiteral Required: false

This is a proc that can be used to provide an ad-hoc way of verifying the value provided by a user.

  validation: ->(i : Int32) : Bool do
    (1..23).includes?(i)
  end

Example: Int Validator

This is used as a fallback to where the options: key doesn't cleanly provide enough of a check for the provided values.

Note: The input value MUST be the same as the value type as the instance variable. Otherwise CliGen will not compile. IF requested I can add a raw_validation: key as well to do the same but for just the String variable provided by the user.

on_match:

Type: ProcLiteral Required: false

Much like validation, this is used as a hook for doing arbitrary actions with the parsed value from the user (very useful for global flags).

    on_match: ->(arg : String) do
      begin
        ::Log.setup(level: ::Log::Severity.parse(arg))
      rescue e : ArgumentError
        STDERR.puts "ERROR : Failed to set to #{arg} log level: (#{e.class}: #{e.message})"
      end
    end

Example: Log level setter

NOTE: This specific example will be reworked once Enum support is added to the framework to do checking directly.

In this way you can use on_match: to hook a global flag and have it call some arbitrary method elsewhere in the codebase to help setup the environment before the main command is run.

options:

Type: ArrayLiteral(T)|Call Required: false

CURRENTLY this is being as a way of providing a static set of values that we are to use when doing a provided argument.

  options: %w[ a b c ]

Example: Options for string var

Howver, this currently also supports delegating the retrieval of values (in array format) to be learned at runtime by providing a call to a global methods/class method/util method/etc

module MyModule
  def self.my_method : Array(String)
    if File.exists?("/etc/valid_things.txt")
      File.read("/etc/valid_things.txt").split(",")
    else
      %w[ a b c ]
    end
  end
  
  CliGen.add_global_flag(String, 
                         short: "-t",
                         long: "--test",
                         description: "This does things. I promise",
                         options: ::MyModule.my_method,
                         on_match: ->(t : String) do 
                           puts "Matched #{t}"
                         end
  )
end

Example: Deletgating to runtime

Doing things this way gives you some runtime flexibility, but makes you responsible for ensuring that it doesn't crash or provide incorrect data at runtime. As (unfortunately) the framework doesn't account for developer error at runtime like it can at compile-time with a static array of values.

format:

Type: RegexLiteral Required: false

This metadata is used to provide (mostly for strings when you don't have a statically known list of values that can be provided at runtime, but you want to filter out invalid options.

  format: /^([a-z0-9]+)(,?[a-z0-9]+)+$/

EX: filtering for csv formatted info