require 'optparse'

OptionParser

OptionParser is a class for command-line option analysis. It is much more advanced, yet also easier to use, than GetoptLong, and is a more Ruby-oriented solution.

Features

  1. The argument specification and the code to handle it are written in the same place.
  2. It can output an option summary; you don’t need to maintain this string separately.
  3. Optional and mandatory arguments are specified very gracefully.
  4. Arguments can be automatically converted to a specified class.
  5. Arguments can be restricted to a certain set.

All of these features are demonstrated in the examples below. See #make_switch for full documentation.

Minimal example

require 'optparse'

options = {}
OptionParser.new do |opts|
  opts.banner = "Usage: example.rb [options]"

  opts.on("-v", "--[no-]verbose", "Run verbosely") do |v|
    options[:verbose] = v
  end
end.parse!

p options
p ARGV

Generating Help

OptionParser can be used to automatically generate help for the commands you write:

require 'optparse'

Options = Struct.new(:name)

class Parser
  def self.parse(options)
    args = Options.new("world")

    opt_parser = OptionParser.new do |opts|
      opts.banner = "Usage: example.rb [options]"

      opts.on("-nNAME", "--name=NAME", "Name to say hello to") do |n|
        args.name = n
      end

      opts.on("-h", "--help", "Prints this help") do
        puts opts
        exit
      end
    end

    opt_parser.parse!(options)
    return args
  end
end
options = Parser.parse %w[--help]

#=>
   # Usage: example.rb [options]
   #     -n, --name=NAME                  Name to say hello to
   #     -h, --help                       Prints this help

Required Arguments

For options that require an argument, option specification strings may include an option name in all caps. If an option is used without the required argument, an exception will be raised.

require 'optparse'

options = {}
OptionParser.new do |parser|
  parser.on("-r", "--require LIBRARY",
            "Require the LIBRARY before executing your script") do |lib|
    puts "You required #{lib}!"
  end
end.parse!

Used:

$ ruby optparse-test.rb -r
optparse-test.rb:9:in `<main>': missing argument: -r (OptionParser::MissingArgument)
$ ruby optparse-test.rb -r my-library
You required my-library!

Type Coercion

OptionParser supports the ability to coerce command line arguments into objects for us.

OptionParser comes with a few ready-to-use kinds of type coercion. They are:

  • Date – Anything accepted by Date.parse
  • DateTime – Anything accepted by DateTime.parse
  • Time – Anything accepted by Time.httpdate or Time.parse
  • URI – Anything accepted by URI.parse
  • Shellwords – Anything accepted by Shellwords.shellwords
  • String – Any non-empty string
  • Integer – Any integer. Will convert octal. (e.g. 124, -3, 040)
  • Float – Any float. (e.g. 10, 3.14, -100E+13)
  • Numeric – Any integer, float, or rational (1, 3.4, 1/3)
  • DecimalInteger – Like Integer, but no octal format.
  • OctalInteger – Like Integer, but no decimal format.
  • DecimalNumeric – Decimal integer or float.
  • TrueClass – Accepts ‘+, yes, true, -, no, false’ and defaults as true
  • FalseClass – Same as TrueClass, but defaults to false
  • Array – Strings separated by ‘,’ (e.g. 1,2,3)
  • Regexp – Regular expressions. Also includes options.

We can also add our own coercions, which we will cover below.

Using Built-in Conversions

As an example, the built-in Time conversion is used. The other built-in conversions behave in the same way. OptionParser will attempt to parse the argument as a Time. If it succeeds, that time will be passed to the handler block. Otherwise, an exception will be raised.

require 'optparse'
require 'optparse/time'
OptionParser.new do |parser|
  parser.on("-t", "--time [TIME]", Time, "Begin execution at given time") do |time|
    p time
  end
end.parse!

Used:

$ ruby optparse-test.rb  -t nonsense
... invalid argument: -t nonsense (OptionParser::InvalidArgument)
$ ruby optparse-test.rb  -t 10-11-12
2010-11-12 00:00:00 -0500
$ ruby optparse-test.rb  -t 9:30
2014-08-13 09:30:00 -0400
Creating Custom Conversions

The accept method on OptionParser may be used to create converters. It specifies which conversion block to call whenever a class is specified. The example below uses it to fetch a User object before the on handler receives it.

require 'optparse'

User = Struct.new(:id, :name)

def find_user id
  not_found = ->{ raise "No User Found for id #{id}" }
  [ User.new(1, "Sam"),
    User.new(2, "Gandalf") ].find(not_found) do |u|
    u.id == id
  end
end

op = OptionParser.new
op.accept(User) do |user_id|
  find_user user_id.to_i
end

op.on("--user ID", User) do |user|
  puts user
end

op.parse!

Used:

$ ruby optparse-test.rb --user 1
#<struct User id=1, name="Sam">
$ ruby optparse-test.rb --user 2
#<struct User id=2, name="Gandalf">
$ ruby optparse-test.rb --user 3
optparse-test.rb:15:in `block in find_user`: No User Found for id 3 (RuntimeError)

Store options to a Hash

The into option of order, parse and so on methods stores command line options into a Hash.

require 'optparse'

params = {}
OptionParser.new do |opts|
  opts.on('-a')
  opts.on('-b NUM', Integer)
  opts.on('-v', '--verbose')
end.parse!(into: params)

p params

Used:

$ ruby optparse-test.rb -a
{:a=>true}
$ ruby optparse-test.rb -a -v
{:a=>true, :verbose=>true}
$ ruby optparse-test.rb -a -b 100
{:a=>true, :b=>100}

OptionParser Reference