# SYNOPSIS ## In your class package My::App; use Mouse; with 'MouseX::Getopt'; has 'out' => (is => 'rw', isa => 'Str', required => 1); has 'in' => (is => 'rw', isa => 'Str', required => 1); # ... rest of the class here ## in your script #!/usr/bin/perl use My::App; my $app = My::App->new_with_options(); # ... rest of the script here ## on the command line % perl my_app_script.pl -in file.input -out file.dump # DESCRIPTION This is a role which provides an alternate constructor for creating objects using parameters passed in from the command line. This module attempts to DWIM as much as possible with the command line params by introspecting your class's attributes. It will use the name of your attribute as the command line option, and if there is a type constraint defined, it will configure Getopt::Long to handle the option accordingly. You can use the trait [MouseX::Getopt::Meta::Attribute::Trait](https://metacpan.org/pod/MouseX::Getopt::Meta::Attribute::Trait) or the attribute metaclass [MouseX::Getopt::Meta::Attribute](https://metacpan.org/pod/MouseX::Getopt::Meta::Attribute) to get non-default commandline option names and aliases. You can use the trait [MouseX::Getopt::Meta::Attribute::Trait::NoGetopt](https://metacpan.org/pod/MouseX::Getopt::Meta::Attribute::Trait::NoGetopt) or the attribute metaclass [MouseX::Getopt::Meta::Attribute::NoGetopt](https://metacpan.org/pod/MouseX::Getopt::Meta::Attribute::NoGetopt) to have `MouseX::Getopt` ignore your attribute in the commandline options. By default, attributes which start with an underscore are not given commandline argument support, unless the attribute's metaclass is set to [MouseX::Getopt::Meta::Attribute](https://metacpan.org/pod/MouseX::Getopt::Meta::Attribute). If you don't want your accessors to have the leading underscore in their name, you can do this: # for read/write attributes has '_foo' => (accessor => 'foo', ...); # or for read-only attributes has '_bar' => (reader => 'bar', ...); This will mean that Getopt will not handle a --foo param, but your code can still call the `foo` method. If your class also uses a configfile-loading role based on [MouseX::ConfigFromFile](https://metacpan.org/pod/MouseX::ConfigFromFile), such as [MouseX::SimpleConfig](https://metacpan.org/pod/MouseX::SimpleConfig), [MouseX::Getopt](https://metacpan.org/pod/MouseX::Getopt)'s `new_with_options` will load the configfile specified by the `--configfile` option (or the default you've given for the configfile attribute) for you. Options specified in multiple places follow the following precedence order: commandline overrides configfile, which overrides explicit new\_with\_options parameters. ## Supported Type Constraints - _Bool_ A _Bool_ type constraint is set up as a boolean option with Getopt::Long. So that this attribute description: has 'verbose' => (is => 'rw', isa => 'Bool'); would translate into `verbose!` as a Getopt::Long option descriptor, which would enable the following command line options: % my_script.pl --verbose % my_script.pl --noverbose - _Int_, _Float_, _Str_ These type constraints are set up as properly typed options with Getopt::Long, using the `=i`, `=f` and `=s` modifiers as appropriate. - _ArrayRef_ An _ArrayRef_ type constraint is set up as a multiple value option in Getopt::Long. So that this attribute description: has 'include' => ( is => 'rw', isa => 'ArrayRef', default => sub { [] } ); would translate into `includes=s@` as a Getopt::Long option descriptor, which would enable the following command line options: % my_script.pl --include /usr/lib --include /usr/local/lib - _HashRef_ A _HashRef_ type constraint is set up as a hash value option in Getopt::Long. So that this attribute description: has 'define' => ( is => 'rw', isa => 'HashRef', default => sub { {} } ); would translate into `define=s%` as a Getopt::Long option descriptor, which would enable the following command line options: % my_script.pl --define os=linux --define vendor=debian ## Custom Type Constraints It is possible to create custom type constraint to option spec mappings if you need them. The process is fairly simple (but a little verbose maybe). First you create a custom subtype, like so: subtype 'ArrayOfInts' => as 'ArrayRef' => where { scalar (grep { looks_like_number($_) } @$_) }; Then you register the mapping, like so: MouseX::Getopt::OptionTypeMap->add_option_type_to_map( 'ArrayOfInts' => '=i@' ); Now any attribute declarations using this type constraint will get the custom option spec. So that, this: has 'nums' => ( is => 'ro', isa => 'ArrayOfInts', default => sub { [0] } ); Will translate to the following on the command line: % my_script.pl --nums 5 --nums 88 --nums 199 This example is fairly trivial, but more complex validations are easily possible with a little creativity. The trick is balancing the type constraint validations with the Getopt::Long validations. Better examples are certainly welcome :) ## Inferred Type Constraints If you define a custom subtype which is a subtype of one of the standard ["Supported Type Constraints"](#supported-type-constraints) above, and do not explicitly provide custom support as in ["Custom Type Constraints"](#custom-type-constraints) above, MouseX::Getopt will treat it like the parent type for Getopt purposes. For example, if you had the same custom `ArrayOfInts` subtype from the examples above, but did not add a new custom option type for it to the `OptionTypeMap`, it would be treated just like a normal `ArrayRef` type for Getopt purposes (that is, `=s@`). - __new\_with\_options (%params)__ This method will take a set of default `%params` and then collect params from the command line (possibly overriding those in `%params`) and then return a newly constructed object. The special parameter `argv`, if specified should point to an array reference with an array to use instead of `@ARGV`. If ["GetOptions" in Getopt::Long](https://metacpan.org/pod/Getopt::Long#GetOptions) fails (due to invalid arguments), `new_with_options` will throw an exception. If [Getopt::Long::Descriptive](https://metacpan.org/pod/Getopt::Long::Descriptive) is installed and any of the following command line params are passed, the program will exit with usage information (and the option's state will be stored in the help\_flag attribute). You can add descriptions for each option by including a __documentation__ option for each attribute to document. --? --help --usage If you have [Getopt::Long::Descriptive](https://metacpan.org/pod/Getopt::Long::Descriptive) the `usage` param is also passed to `new` as the usage option. - __ARGV__ This accessor contains a reference to a copy of the `@ARGV` array as it originally existed at the time of `new_with_options`. - __extra\_argv__ This accessor contains an arrayref of leftover `@ARGV` elements that [Getopt::Long](https://metacpan.org/pod/Getopt::Long) did not parse. Note that the real `@ARGV` is left un-mangled. - __usage__ This accessor contains the [Getopt::Long::Descriptive::Usage](https://metacpan.org/pod/Getopt::Long::Descriptive::Usage) object (if [Getopt::Long::Descriptive](https://metacpan.org/pod/Getopt::Long::Descriptive) is used). - __help\_flag__ This accessor contains the boolean state of the --help, --usage and --? options (true if any of these options were passed on the command line). - __meta__ This returns the role meta object. # AUTHORS - NAKAGAWA Masaki - FUJI Goro - Stevan Little - Brandon L. Black - Yuval Kogman - Ryan D Johnson - Drew Taylor - Tomas Doran - Florian Ragwitz - Dagfinn Ilmari Mannsaker - Avar Arnfjord Bjarmason - Chris Prather - Mark Gardner - Tokuhiro Matsuno # COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE This software is copyright (c) 2012 by Infinity Interactive, Inc. This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.