simple-opt
simple-opt.h is a single header file which implements a simple, flexible, and portable version of command line option parsing for programs written in C. it is designed to be (hopefully) intuitive while also being (hopefully) more powerful than traditional getopt or similar. it has no dependencies outside the standard library.
what follows is a simple example usage. refer to interface.md for more detail.
example
the following example file is available as example.c, which you can compile and test with yourself.
#include "../simple-opt.h"
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
const char *set[] = { "str_a", "str_b", NULL };
/* array containing all options and their types / attributes */
struct simple_opt options[] = {
{ SIMPLE_OPT_FLAG, 'h', "help", false,
"print this help message and exit" },
{ SIMPLE_OPT_BOOL, 'b', "bool", false,
"(optionally) takes a boolean arg!" },
{ SIMPLE_OPT_INT, '\0', "int", true,
"requires an integer. has no short_name!" },
{ SIMPLE_OPT_UNSIGNED, 'u', "uns", true,
"this one has a custom_arg_string. normally it would say"
" \"UNSIGNED\" rather than \"NON-NEG-INT\"",
"NON-NEG-INT" },
{ SIMPLE_OPT_DOUBLE, 'd', "double", true,
"a floating point number" },
{ SIMPLE_OPT_STRING, 's', NULL, true,
"this one doesn't have a long_name version" },
{ SIMPLE_OPT_STRING_SET, '\0', "set-choice", true,
"a choice of one string from a NULL-terminated array",
"(str_a|str_b)", set },
{ SIMPLE_OPT_END },
};
/* contains an enum for identifying simple_opt_parse's return value, an
* array of the cli arguments which were not parsed as options, and
* information relevant for error handling */
struct simple_opt_result result;
int i;
result = simple_opt_parse(argc, argv, options);
/* catch any errors and print a default error message. you can do this bit
* yourself, if you'd like more control of the output */
if (result.result_type != SIMPLE_OPT_RESULT_SUCCESS) {
simple_opt_print_error(stderr, 80, argv[0], result);
return 1;
}
/* if the help flag was passed, print usage */
if (options[0].was_seen) {
simple_opt_print_usage(stdout, 80, argv[0],
"[OPTION]... [--] [NON-OPTION]...",
"This is where you would put an overview description of the "
"program and its general functionality.", options);
return 0;
}
/* print a summary of options passed */
for (i = 0; options[i].type != SIMPLE_OPT_END; i++) {
if (options[i].long_name != NULL)
printf("--%s, ", options[i].long_name);
else
printf("-%c, ", options[i].short_name);
printf("seen: %s", (options[i].was_seen ? "yes" : "no"));
if (options[i].arg_is_stored) {
switch (options[i].type) {
case SIMPLE_OPT_BOOL:
printf(", val: %s", options[i].val.v_bool ? "true" : "false");
break;
case SIMPLE_OPT_INT:
printf(", val: %ld", options[i].val.v_int);
break;
case SIMPLE_OPT_UNSIGNED:
printf(", val: %lu", options[i].val.v_unsigned);
break;
case SIMPLE_OPT_DOUBLE:
printf(", val: %lf", options[i].val.v_double);
break;
case SIMPLE_OPT_CHAR:
printf(", val: %c", options[i].val.v_char);
break;
case SIMPLE_OPT_STRING:
printf(", val: %s", options[i].val.v_string);
break;
case SIMPLE_OPT_STRING_SET:
printf(", val: %s",
options[i].string_set[options[i].val.v_string_set_idx]);
break;
default:
break;
}
}
puts("");
}
/* if any non-option arguments were passed, print them */
if (result.argc > 0) {
printf("\nnon-options:");
for (i = 0; i < result.argc; i++)
printf(" %s", result.argv[i]);
puts("");
}
return 0;
}
options are stored in an array of struct simple_opt, which contains fields
for the option's type, an (optional) short option alias, an (optional) long
option alias, a boolean indicating whether this option's argument is required
or optional, an (optional) string describing what the option does, and an
(optional) string describing how the option's argument type should be printed
by simple_opt_print_usage. the end of the array must be indicated with an
option of type SIMPLE_OPT_END.
this array is passed to simple_opt_parse and, if the parsing is successful,
relevant values (was_seen, arg_is_stored, val.v_<type>) are in-place stored
in the options. otherwise, the returned struct simple_opt_result will have a
type other than SIMPLE_OPT_RESULT_SUCCESS, in which case error reporting
occurs.
$ ./a.out -y
./a.out: unrecognised option `-y`
$ ./a.out --int
./a.out: argument expected for option `--int`
$ ./a.out --bool fake
./a.out: bad argument `fake` passed to option `--bool`
expected a boolean: (yes|true|on) or (no|false|off)
if one of the options passed is the help flag (-h or --help), this example
uses simple_opt_print_usage to print out a neatly-formatted usage message
(using the description strings stored in the array earlier). that message looks
like this:
$ ./a.out --help
Usage: ./a.out [OPTION]... [--] [NON-OPTION]...
This is where you would put an overview description of the program and its
general functionality.
-h --help print this help message and exit
-b --bool[=BOOL] (optionally) takes a boolean arg!
--int=INT requires an integer. has no short_name!
-u --uns=NON-NEG-INT this one has a custom_arg_string. normally it
would say "UNSIGNED" rather than "NON-NEG-INT"
-d --double=DOUBLE a floating point number
-s STRING this one doesn't have a long_name version
--set-choice=(str_a|str_b) a choice of one string from a NULL-terminated
array
note that the output is word-wrapped. it wraps to a maximum of 80 columns
because 80 is passed as the second argument to simple_opt_print_usage
(allowing printing to adapt to the user's terminal width if you want to add
support for that, via ncurses or something). also note that the indentation of
the option descriptions is dependent on the width of the long_name column. if
the lengthy set-choice line was removed, for example, the output would
become:
Usage: ./a.out [OPTION]... [--] [NON-OPTION]...
This is where you would put an overview description of the program and its
general functionality.
-h --help print this help message and exit
-b --bool[=BOOL] (optionally) takes a boolean arg!
--int=INT requires an integer. has no short_name!
-u --uns=NON-NEG-INT this one has a custom_arg_string. normally it would say
"UNSIGNED" rather than "NON-NEG-INT"
-d --double=DOUBLE a floating point number
-s STRING this one doesn't have a long_name version
finally, if parsing was successful and usage not printed, this program prints a quick summary of which options it accepts, which it saw, and what arguments were passed to those options, and what non-option arguments were passed to the command itself:
$ ./a.out
--help, seen: no
--bool, seen: no
--int, seen: no
--uns, seen: no
--double, seen: no
-s, seen: no
--set-choice, seen: no
$ ./a.out --int=-1 -s test_string -b -- trailing --args -passed
--help, seen: no
--bool, seen: yes
--int, seen: yes, val: -1
--uns, seen: no
--double, seen: no
-s, seen: yes, val: test_string
--set-choice, seen: no
non-options: trailing --args -passed
$ ./a.out --bool=false -u 3 --set-choice "str_b"
--help, seen: no
--bool, seen: yes, val: false
--int, seen: no
--uns, seen: yes, val: 3
--double, seen: no
-s, seen: no
--set-choice, seen: yes, val: str_b
$ ./a.out no options, just arguments
--help, seen: no
--bool, seen: no
--int, seen: no
--uns, seen: no
--double, seen: no
-s, seen: no
--set-choice, seen: no
non-options: no options, just arguments
$ ./a.out non-options --int=+1 can -d 3.9 be --uns 0 interleaved
--help, seen: no
--bool, seen: no
--int, seen: yes, val: 1
--uns, seen: yes, val: 0
--double, seen: yes, val: 3.900000
-s, seen: no
--set-choice, seen: no
non-options: non-options can be interleaved
changelog
v1.4: move vals to a named union (interface-change)
v1.2: add optional error printing function
v1.0: initial release