This has been bounced around for a couple years now
#474 and a few others have expressed desire to work with non-standard
option names. We have been somewhat resistant to that but I think it can
be done now. This PR adds a modifier `allow_non_standard_option_names()`
It is purposely long, it is purposely off by default. But what it does
is allow option names with a single `-` to act like a short option name.
With this modifier enabled no single letter short option names are
allowed to start with the same letter as a non-standard names. For
example `-s` and `-single` would not be allowed.
---------
Co-authored-by: pre-commit-ci[bot] <66853113+pre-commit-ci[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Henry Schreiner <HenrySchreinerIII@gmail.com>
_This is the new PR I've mentioned to work on in PR #858_
## A better Help Formatter
_See below for images of the new help page_
Finally, after a lot of planning, understanding CLI11's codebase,
testing and coding, the new default Help Formatter is done. There are a
lot of changes to make the help page more readable and closer to UNIX
standards, see Changelog below for details. One of the highlights is
automatic paragraph formatting with correct line wrapping for App and
options/flag descriptions as well as the footer.
A goal was to provide more flexibility and better readability for the
help page while providing full compatibility with Apps using CLI11 (no
breaking changes and no changes to Apps required). Also better support
for different terminal sizes. Users can now specify three new optional
attributes: `right_column_width_`, `description_paragraph_width_` and
`footer_paragraph_width_`. See code documentation for more details. The
different columns for options/flags now scale with the set
`column_width_` value: Single dash flags occupy 33% of the set
`column_width_`, double dash flags and options (like REQUIRED) 66%.
These new attributes allow for indirectly respecting terminal geometry,
footer paragraph formatting has also been added (#355). This PR also
implements the issues #353 and #856.
The new help page formatting can also be used as an input for man page
generation, since it's oriented on the man page style (#413).
[help2man](https://www.gnu.org/software/help2man/) can be used to
generate man pages from help output (see comment down below for
example).
I thoroughly tested this code with all possible combinations of flags,
options, positionals, subcommands, validators, ...
So far everything works great.
I hope this PR looks good and meets all requirements. I'm looking
forward to the implementation of this PR into CLI11. If you have any
questions or suggestions feel free to comment.
### Fixed/implemented issues by this PR
- #353 Better options formatting
- #856 Space between options
- #355 Footer formatting
- #413 Man page generation can be achieved using help2man with the new
help formatting
- https://github.com/CLIUtils/CLI11/issues/384#issuecomment-570066436
Better help formatting can be marked as complete
### What about the failing tests?
Of course the tests expect the old help text format. This is why 6 of
the tests are failing. Since it is a bit of work to migrate the tests to
the new help format, I first wanted to push out this PR and get
confirmation before I'll update all the tests.
So please let me know if this PR gets implemented, what changes should
be made and then I'll migrate the tests to the new help format, either
in this PR or I'll make a new one.
## Changelog:
#### There are _no breaking changes_. Every App using CLI11 will work
with this new formatter with no changes required.
- Added empty lines at beginning and end of help text
- Removed double new-line between option groups for consistency. Now all
sections have the same number of new-lines
- Switched usage and description order
- Only show "Usage"-string if no App name is present. This provides
better readability
- Made categories (Options, Positionals, ...) capital
- Changed `ConfigBase::to_config` to correctly process capital
"OPTIONS"-group (only affects descriptions of the config file, not a
breaking change)
- Added a paragraph formatter function `streamOutAsParagraph` to
StringTools.hpp
- Made "description" a paragraph block with correct, word respecting
line wrapping and indentation (using the new paragraph formatter
function)
- Made the footer a paragraph block with correct, word respecting line
wrapping and indentation
- Updated documentation for `column_width_` to make it more clear
- Added new member: `right_column_width_`, added getter and setter for
`right_column_width_`
- Added new member: `description_paragraph_width_`, added getter and
setter for `description_paragraph_width_`
- Added new member: `footer_paragraph_width_`, added getter and setter
for `footer_paragraph_width_ `
- Positionals description are now formatted as paragraph with correct,
word respecting line wrapping
- Options description are now formatted as paragraph with correct, word
respecting line wrapping
- Short and long options/flags/names are now correctly formatted to
always be at the right position (also for subcommand options/flags)
- Short and long options/flags/names column widths scale linearly with
the `column_width_` attribute to better adapt to different
`column_width_` sizes
- Merged PR #860
## What's planned for the future?
- I'm thinking of better formatting the options of flags (like REQUIRED,
TEXT, INT, ...) and make them also in a seperate column. This way they
would also always be at the same position. However I decided against it
for this PR, since I wanted them to be as close as possible to the
actual flag. With my implementation it is quite easy to add this change
in the future.
- Subcommands: I'm planning on better formatting the Subcommands. With
this PR only the short and long flags/options of subcommands are better
formatted (like it is with the main flags, see images down below).
- Maybe implement a different way to display expected data type options
(TEXT, INT, ...). For example: `--file-name=<TEXT>` for long flags only
and if `disable_flag_override_` is false.
- Maybe add something like this:
https://github.com/CLIUtils/CLI11/issues/554
---------
Co-authored-by: pre-commit-ci[bot] <66853113+pre-commit-ci[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Philip Top <phlptp@gmail.com>
Add some additional tests to try to get test coverage back to 100%
refactor the positional parsing to reduce code duplication
---------
Co-authored-by: pre-commit-ci[bot] <66853113+pre-commit-ci[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>
* fix: show newline before footer only if footer is set and not empty
* feat: added usage message replacement feature
* fix: tests corrected for new help message formatting
* add some more tests for coverage and fix some confusing error situations with config files.
* style: pre-commit.ci fixes
* fix warning
* ci: fix coverage
Co-authored-by: pre-commit-ci[bot] <66853113+pre-commit-ci[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Henry Schreiner <HenrySchreinerIII@gmail.com>
* add a few tests related to github issues
* change how the default is displayed in the help message prev was =XXXX, this was confusing in some cases particularly with flags or with multiple option names. Now is [default=XXXX] which makes it clearer what the value represents.
* Try to fix RTTI issue
* style: pre-commit.ci fixes
* Fix subcommand callbacks being called multiple times if in an option group
* style: pre-commit.ci fixes
* remove extra group call
* change [default=XXXXD] to just [XXXXX] for the default specification
* update changelog
Co-authored-by: pre-commit-ci[bot] <66853113+pre-commit-ci[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>
* Add a dedicated version option to CLI11 to facilitate use of version flags, similar to help flags
* add some test for the version flag
* update errors and formatting
* clear up gcc 4.8 warnings
* add a few more tests
* fix compiler error
* fix a few comments, and change default version flag to only use "--version"
* remove `version` calls and tests
* formatting and add `std::string version()` back in.
* Add whitespace/comments check
* Adapt spacing in clang-format
* Fix cpplint whitespace/comments issues
* Grammar
* Do not use clang-format for comment spacing
* Fix with clang-format pre-commit hook
* work on the flags book chapter and making sure the values are initialized properly.
* Fix initialization of values used in flags or options
* update some formatting and more brace initialization
* update more formatting and fix a incorrect initializer
* more formatting and some error fixes
* more formatting
* Small formatting fix
Co-authored-by: Henry Schreiner <HenrySchreinerIII@gmail.com>
* Fix invalid callback calls for default_val Option function. the update adds a flag variable to control it, makes default_val exception safe and a template to convert from actual value types.
* update readme and fix some compilation issues on older compilers
* revert README.md with mistake erasures
* Update README.md
Co-authored-by: Henry Schreiner <HenrySchreinerIII@gmail.com>
* add ability to specify deprecated or retired options.
* add retired example and tests
* update some formatting and a few more test executions
* fix formatting on retired.cpp
* add another test to fill coverage gap for existing options that are being retired.
* add example comments
* Update readme with the descriptions of the new helper functions
* fix space on readme
* Apply suggestions from code review
Co-Authored-By: Christoph Bachhuber <cbachhuber89@gmail.com>
* add some flags to the code coverage report and update some names and add more descriptions to deprecated options
* update formatting on App
fix incorrect parenthesis
update some clang-tidy fixes mainly else after return but a few conversions from into to bool
add extra newline before footer
add an extra field to the extra Error
add a footer callback for help operations
* First streaming version
* Using to_string instead
* Switching to new backend
* Moving to capture function for defaults
* Rename capture_default + _str
* defaultval -> default_str, added always_capture_default
* Fix style
* Adding tests and docs to readme
* Dropping macOS on Travis (supported through Azure)
* add transform and checkedTransform tests
add Transformer and CheckedTransformer validators
* Eliminate the Validator description string, some code cleanup
add tests
Make Validators a full Object and remove friend, move to descriptions instead of overriding type name.
update validators to actually merge the type strings and use all validators in the type outputs
rework join so it works without the start variable, allow some forwarding references in the validator types, some tests for non-copyable maps, and transforms
merge the search function and enable use of member search function, make the pair adapters forwarding instead of copying
* add a few more tests and documentation
fix some gcc 4.7 issues and add a few more test cases and more parts of the README
Work on ReadMe and add Bound validator to clamp values
* updates to README.md
* Add some more in TOC of README and fix style in Option.hpp
* Adding first draft of mapping
* IsMember now supports maps
* Adding example, better Val combs, and cleanup
* Reversing order of map, adding pair support
* Check/Transform suppport for Validators
* Adding enum tools from @phlptp, more tests
* Adding first draft of Sets
Use IsMember now
Using IsMember as backend for Set
Non-const validator backend
Move set tests to set
Clearer inits
* Drop shortcut
Tighten up classes a bit for MSVC
Check with GCC 4.8 too
* Simpler templates, but more of them
Dropping more type safety for older compilers
Shortcut string set
* Adding shortcut init
Making g++ 4.7 docker image happy
Fix Clang tidy issue with last commit
Adding one more shortcut, adding a couple of tests
* Dropping dual pointer versions of code
* Smarter shortcut syntax
* Adding slighly faster choices
* Cleanup to make InMember simpler
* Drop choices for now, adding some tests
* ValidationError is now always the error from a validator
* Support for other types of initializer lists, including enums
* Factor out type utilities, single version of IsMember code
* Adding a few tests for #224
* Minor cleanup for Validation Error
* Adding tests, moved deprecated tests
* Docs updates
* Getting a bit closer to Version 1.7
* Check and fix for deleting an option pointer directly that is also a help option. It is not common, but could be done
