[Chicago-talk] alternatives to Getopt::Long

Mike Fragassi frag at ripco.com
Fri May 7 16:16:17 CDT 2004


On Fri, 7 May 2004, Wiggins d Anconia wrote:

> >    GetOptions('foo=s+' => \@foo);  # or 'foo=sl', or 'foo=S', or whatever
>
> If I understand correctly it is so that there can be a distinction
> between what is an argument and what is an input file.  Normally the

Fair enough -- if you're creating an app for public release that may take
files as STDIN.  I'm creating an in-house script only to be used by admins
that works on our database tables and that does nothing with STDIN.  Put
another way, I'm not worried if the contents of @ARGV get slurped up into
the last option's array, because @ARGV should be empty by the time
GetOptions() finishes, or else there's an error.  So, in my situation,
what I want to do makes sense.  I'm certainly not proposing it become
Getopt::Long's default behavior.

> an input file. Enter the commas, verbose switching, etc.  The + is an
> interesting notion but adds one additional step and complexity just to
> prevent the need for user to "just do it the way everyone else does".
> To me this adds testing steps, documentation, (dumb) user support, etc.

Well, yeah, but Getopt::Long ain't a dainty beast in the first place, and
this struck me as an obvious feature that'd probably would add very little
complexity, rather than the equivalent of giving the module a mail reader.
The prospect of having code with testing steps is kind of what I was
hoping to find if someone knew of an applicable CPAN module.

-- Mike F.



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