Adding descriptive text to OptionParser output

Ruby
1

Hi,

I’d like to add a paragraph of text to my usage message, describing
the non-option arguments accepted by my script. I don’t see any way
to do that in the OptionParser api; have I missed something? The
closest thing I see is the separator() method, but it appears to
expect only a single line of text. I tried using

opts = OptionParser.new do |opts|
   opts.banner = "Usage: #$0 [options] [terms]"
   opts.separator "Options:"
   opts.on( ... )

   opts.separator <<-EOF
   My lucid expository text here,
   complete with examples
   and clever insights.
   EOF
end

…hoping this would produce a paragraph that looked like

My lucid expository text here,
complete with examples
and clever insights.

But the final paragraph was interspersed with blank lines, and looked
like this

   My lucid expository text here,

   complete with examples

   and clever insights.

Is this possible with OptionParser?

Thanks,

Tom

2

I’d like to add a paragraph of text to my usage message, describing
the non-option arguments accepted by my script.

example of working class below.

vlad

require ‘rubygems’

require ‘optparse’
require ‘pp’
require ‘ostruct’

class Options
def self.parse(args)
options = OpenStruct.new

  # load defaults from lugat.yaml here

  option_parser = OptionParser.new do |opts|
    opts.banner = "usage: \n\t lugat.rb [options]"
    opts.separator("")
    opts.separator("common options:")

    opts.on("-v", "--verbose", "be verbose") do |verbose|
      options.verbose = verbose
    end

    opts.separator("specific options:")

    explanation = <<-EOE
if you want to specify the numerical values for the user or group

id,
use :,:,… form,

for example:
              lugat.rb -A -u bob:2001,jan:2002
will add the two users with the respective numerical uids,

              lugat.rb -A -g users:100,lpadmin:104
will add the two groups with the respective numerical gids.

adding users also creates the goups for them (with gid=uid) starting
with first max unused uid.

one can delete user from all groups by suppling * to the -g option
(the * needs to be usually escaped so shell does not expand it)
 EOE

    opts.on("-h", "--help", "print this help") do
      puts opts
      print "\n", explanation
      exit 1
    end

    opts.on("-s", "--server LDAP_SERVER", "connect to LDAP_SERVER")

do |ldap_server|
options.ldap_server = ldap_server
end

    opts.on("-l", "--login LDAP_LOGIN", "login to LDAP as

LDAP_LOGIN") do |ldap_login|
options.ldap_login = ldap_login
end

    opts.on("-p", "--password LDAP_PASSWORD", "use LDAP_PASSWORD for

LDAP login", “(prompted for, if not supplied)”) do |ldap_password|
options.ldap_password = ldap_password
end

    opts.on("-u", "--user user1,user2,...", Array, "list of users to

operate on") do |ldap_person|
options.ldap_person = ldap_person
end

    opts.on("-g", "--group group1,group2,...", Array, "list of

groups to operate on") do |ldap_group|
options.ldap_group = ldap_group
end

    opts.separator("actions:")

    opts.on("-L", "--list", "list entries on the LDAP server") do
      options.ldap_action = :list
    end

    opts.on("-A", "--add", "add entries to the LDAP server") do
      options.ldap_action = :add
    end

    opts.on("-D", "--delete", "delete entries from the LDAP server")

do
options.ldap_action = :delete
end

    opts.on("-C", "--check", "check entries on the LDAP server") do
      options.ldap_action = :check
    end

    opts.parse!(args)
    return options
  end # OptionParser

end # self.parse

end # class Options

if ARGV.length == 0
Options.parse(["-h"])
exit 1
end

options = Options.parse(ARGV)
pp options

3

On Mar 7, 2007, at 6:45 PM, prhlava wrote:

I’d like to add a paragraph of text to my usage message, describing
the non-option arguments accepted by my script.

    opts.on("-h", "--help", "print this help") do
      puts opts
      print "\n", explanation
      exit 1
    end

[…]

if ARGV.length == 0
Options.parse(["-h"])
exit 1
end

Thanks, Vlad. That’s better than what I had been doing.

Tom