Re: ANN: OP Command Line Parser 0.9.1

On Fri, Mar 24, 2006 at 07:12:18PM +1200, Berend de Boer wrote:
> > This is the first release of the library and feedback is very
> > welcome.
> 
> Great, exactly what I need. Except for one thing to make it really
> user-friendly :-)
> 
> A way to describe the options with XML, plus a corresponding grammar
> in Relax NG, and style sheet to create the code.
> 
> The XML sort of looks like this:
> 
> <options>
>   <mode type="gnu"/>
>   <option short="h" long="help" is-help="true"/>
>   <option short="f" long="filename" type="string" required="true"/>
>   <option short="d" long="depth" type="integer"/>
> </options>

You are touching a sensitive point here, a discussion that I have
already had with Andreas Leitner: He also favors a full-fledged XML
configuration file that describes all the different details of the
options and then generates classes for parsing the command line (he
also thinks that the command line should be specified as a regular
grammar, see http://raboof.sourceforge.net/).

My questions were: Is this really necessary? Are the options changing
so often that it is necessary to define then in an extra file? What is
the benefit of having them in a extra file?

These are not rhetorical questions: you are already the second person
suggesting to use an external XML file, and I just do not see the
benefits of doing so. It would be great if you could elaborate a
little on why you think an extra XML file is a good idea.

Bernd

PS: A final question: if I add support of some XML configuration,
    should I develop a code-generator that translates XML into Eiffel
    code, or should I configure the command line options dynamically
    by reading the XML every time I run the program?



To Post a message, send it to:   [email protected]
To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: [email protected] 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gobo-eiffel/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    [email protected]

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/