| 1 | --- | 
| 2 | title: Builtin Commands (Oils Reference) | 
| 3 | all_docs_url: .. | 
| 4 | body_css_class: width40 | 
| 5 | default_highlighter: oils-sh | 
| 6 | preserve_anchor_case: yes | 
| 7 | --- | 
| 8 |  | 
| 9 | <div class="doc-ref-header"> | 
| 10 |  | 
| 11 | [Oils Reference](index.html) — Chapter **Standard Library** | 
| 12 |  | 
| 13 | </div> | 
| 14 |  | 
| 15 | This chapter in the [Oils Reference](index.html) describes the standard library | 
| 16 | for OSH and YSH. | 
| 17 |  | 
| 18 | (These functions are implemented in OSH or YSH, not C++ or Python.) | 
| 19 |  | 
| 20 | <span class="in-progress">(in progress)</span> | 
| 21 |  | 
| 22 | <div id="dense-toc"> | 
| 23 | </div> | 
| 24 |  | 
| 25 | ## two | 
| 26 |  | 
| 27 | These functions are in `two.sh` | 
| 28 |  | 
| 29 | source $OSH_LIB/two.sh | 
| 30 |  | 
| 31 | ### log | 
| 32 |  | 
| 33 | Write a message to stderr: | 
| 34 |  | 
| 35 | log "hi $x" | 
| 36 | log '---' | 
| 37 |  | 
| 38 | ### die | 
| 39 |  | 
| 40 | Write an error message with the script name, and exit with status 1. | 
| 41 |  | 
| 42 | die 'Expected a number' | 
| 43 |  | 
| 44 | ## Args Parser | 
| 45 |  | 
| 46 | YSH includes a command-line argument parsing utility called `parseArgs`. This | 
| 47 | is intended to be used for command-line interfaces to YSH programs. | 
| 48 |  | 
| 49 | To use it, first import `args.ysh`: | 
| 50 |  | 
| 51 | source --builtin args.ysh | 
| 52 |  | 
| 53 | Then, create an argument parser **spec**ification: | 
| 54 |  | 
| 55 | parser (&spec) { | 
| 56 | flag -v --verbose (help="Verbosely")  # default is Bool, false | 
| 57 |  | 
| 58 | flag -P --max-procs ('int', default=-1, help=''' | 
| 59 | Run at most P processes at a time | 
| 60 | ''') | 
| 61 |  | 
| 62 | flag -i --invert ('bool', default=true, help=''' | 
| 63 | Long multiline | 
| 64 | Description | 
| 65 | ''') | 
| 66 |  | 
| 67 | arg src (help='Source') | 
| 68 | arg dest (help='Dest') | 
| 69 |  | 
| 70 | rest files | 
| 71 | } | 
| 72 |  | 
| 73 | Finally, parse `ARGV` (or any other array of strings) with: | 
| 74 |  | 
| 75 | var args = parseArgs(spec, ARGV) | 
| 76 |  | 
| 77 | The returned `args` is a `Dict` containing key-value pairs with the parsed | 
| 78 | values (or defaults) for each flag and argument. For example, given | 
| 79 | `ARGV = :| mysrc -P 12 mydest a b c |`, `args` would be: | 
| 80 |  | 
| 81 | { | 
| 82 | "verbose": false, | 
| 83 | "max-procs": 12, | 
| 84 | "invert": true, | 
| 85 | "src": "mysrc", | 
| 86 | "dest": "mydest", | 
| 87 | "files": ["a", "b", "c"] | 
| 88 | } | 
| 89 |  | 
| 90 | ### parser | 
| 91 |  | 
| 92 | `parseArgs()` requires a parser specification to indicate how to parse the | 
| 93 | `ARGV` array. This specification should be constructed using the `parser` proc. | 
| 94 |  | 
| 95 | parser (&spec) { | 
| 96 | flag -f --my-flag | 
| 97 | arg myarg | 
| 98 | rest otherArgs | 
| 99 | } | 
| 100 |  | 
| 101 | In the above example, `parser` takes in a place `&spec`, which will store the | 
| 102 | resulting specification and a block which is evaluated to build that | 
| 103 | specification. | 
| 104 |  | 
| 105 | Inside of a `parser` block, you should call the following procs: | 
| 106 |  | 
| 107 | - `flag` to add `--flag` options | 
| 108 | - `arg` to add positional arguments | 
| 109 | - `rest` to capture remaining positional arguments into a list | 
| 110 |  | 
| 111 | `parser` will validate the parser specification for errors such as duplicate | 
| 112 | flag or argument names. | 
| 113 |  | 
| 114 | parser (&spec) { | 
| 115 | flag -n --name | 
| 116 | flag -n --name  # Duplicate! | 
| 117 | } | 
| 118 |  | 
| 119 | # => raises "Duplicate flag/arg name 'name' in spec" (status = 3) | 
| 120 |  | 
| 121 | ### flag | 
| 122 |  | 
| 123 | `flag` should be called within a `parser` block. | 
| 124 |  | 
| 125 | parser (&spec) { | 
| 126 | flag -v --verbose | 
| 127 | } | 
| 128 |  | 
| 129 | The above example declares a flag "--verbose" and a short alias "-v". | 
| 130 | `parseArgs()` will then store a boolean value under `args.verbose`: | 
| 131 | - `true` if the flag was passed at least once | 
| 132 | - `false` otherwise | 
| 133 |  | 
| 134 | Flags can also accept values. For example, if you wanted to accept an integer count: | 
| 135 |  | 
| 136 | parser (&spec) { | 
| 137 | flag -N --count ('int') | 
| 138 | } | 
| 139 |  | 
| 140 | Calling `parseArgs` with `ARGV = :| -n 5 |` or `ARGV = :| --count 5 |` will | 
| 141 | store the integer `5` under `args.count`. If the user passes in a non-integer | 
| 142 | value like `ARGV = :| --count abc |`, `parseArgs` will raise an error. | 
| 143 |  | 
| 144 | Default values for an argument can be set with the `default` named argument. | 
| 145 |  | 
| 146 | parser (&spec) { | 
| 147 | flag -N --count ('int', default=2) | 
| 148 |  | 
| 149 | # Boolean flags can be given default values too | 
| 150 | flag -O --optimize ('bool', default=true) | 
| 151 | } | 
| 152 |  | 
| 153 | var args = parseArgs(spec, :| -n 3 |) | 
| 154 | # => args.count = 2 | 
| 155 | # => args.optimize = true | 
| 156 |  | 
| 157 | Each name passed to `flag` must be unique to that specific `parser`. Calling | 
| 158 | `flag` with the same name twice will raise an error inside of `parser`. | 
| 159 |  | 
| 160 | <!-- TODO: how can we explicitly pass false to a boolean flag? --> | 
| 161 | <!-- TODO: how about --no-XXXX variants of flags? --> | 
| 162 |  | 
| 163 | ### arg | 
| 164 |  | 
| 165 | `arg` should be called within a `parser` block. | 
| 166 |  | 
| 167 | parser (&spec) { | 
| 168 | arg query | 
| 169 | arg path | 
| 170 | } | 
| 171 |  | 
| 172 | The above example declares two positional arguments called "query" and "path". | 
| 173 | `parseArgs()` will then store strings under `args.query` and `args.path`. Order | 
| 174 | matters, so the first positional argument will be stored to `query` and the | 
| 175 | second to `path`. If not enough positional arguments are passed, then | 
| 176 | `parseArgs` will raise an error. | 
| 177 |  | 
| 178 | Similar to `flag`, each `arg` name must be unique. Calling `arg` with the same | 
| 179 | name twice will cause `parser` to raise an error. | 
| 180 |  | 
| 181 | ### rest | 
| 182 |  | 
| 183 | `rest` should be called within a `parser` block. | 
| 184 |  | 
| 185 | parser (&spec) { | 
| 186 | arg query | 
| 187 | rest files | 
| 188 | } | 
| 189 |  | 
| 190 | Capture zero or more positional arguments not already captured by `arg`. So, | 
| 191 | for `ARGV = :| hello file.txt message.txt README.md |`, we would have | 
| 192 | `args.query = "file.txt"` and `args.files = ["file.txt", "message.txt", | 
| 193 | "README.md"]`. | 
| 194 |  | 
| 195 | Without rest, passing extraneous arguments will raise an error in | 
| 196 | `parseArgs()`. | 
| 197 |  | 
| 198 | `rest` can only be called _once_ within a `parser`. Calling it multiple times | 
| 199 | will raise an error in `parser`. | 
| 200 |  | 
| 201 | ### parseArgs() | 
| 202 |  | 
| 203 | Given a parser specification `spec` produced by `parser`, parse a list of | 
| 204 | strings (usually `ARGV`.) | 
| 205 |  | 
| 206 | var args = parseArgs(spec, ARGV) | 
| 207 |  | 
| 208 | The returned `args` is a dictionary mapping the names of each `arg`, `flag` and | 
| 209 | `rest` to their captured values. (See the example at the [start of this | 
| 210 | topic](#Args-Parser).) | 
| 211 |  | 
| 212 | `parseArgs` will raise an error if the `ARGV` is invalid per the parser | 
| 213 | specification. For example, if it's missing a required positional argument: | 
| 214 |  | 
| 215 | parser (&spec) { | 
| 216 | arg path | 
| 217 | } | 
| 218 |  | 
| 219 | var args = parseArgs(spec, []) | 
| 220 | # => raises an error about the missing 'path' (status = 2) | 
| 221 |  | 
| 222 | <!-- | 
| 223 | TODO: Document chaining parsers / sub-commands | 
| 224 | - Either will allow parser nesting | 
| 225 | - Or can use `rest rest` and `parseArgs` again on `rest` | 
| 226 | TODO: Document the help named argument. Punting while we do not generate help messages | 
| 227 | --> |