NAME MooseX::App - Write user-friendly command line apps with even less suffering SYNOPSIS In your base class: package MyApp; use MooseX::App qw(Color); option 'global_option' => ( is => 'rw', isa => 'Bool', documentation => q[Enable this to do fancy stuff], ); # Global option has 'private' => ( is => 'rw', ); # not exposed Write multiple command classes (If you have only a single command class you should use MooseX::App::Simple instead) package MyApp::SomeCommand; use MooseX::App::Command; # important (also imports Moose) extends qw(MyApp); # optional, only if you want to use global options from base class # Positional parameter parameter 'some_parameter' => ( is => 'rw', isa => 'Str', required => 1, documentation => q[Some parameter that you need to supply], ); option 'some_option' => ( is => 'rw', isa => 'Int', required => 1, documentation => q[Very important option!], ); # Option sub run { my ($self) = @_; # Do something } And then you need a simple wrapper script (called eg. myapp): #!/usr/bin/env perl use MyApp; MyApp->new_with_command->run; On the command line: bash$ myapp help usage: myapp [long options...] myapp help global options: --global_option Enable this to do fancy stuff [Flag] --help --usage -? Prints this usage information. [Flag] available commands: some_command Description of some command another_command Description of another command help Prints this usage information or bash$ myapp some_command --help usage: myapp some_command [long options...] myapp help myapp some_command --help parameters: some_parameter Some parameter that you need to supply [Required] options: --global_option Enable this to do fancy stuff [Flag] --some_option Very important option! [Int,Required] --help --usage -? Prints this usage information. [Flag] DESCRIPTION MooseX-App is a highly customisable helper to write user-friendly command line applications without having to worry about most of the annoying things usually involved. Just take any existing Moose class, add a single line ("use MooseX-App qw(PluginA PluginB ...);") and create one class for each command in an underlying namespace. Options and positional parameters can be defined as simple Moose accessors. MooseX-App will then * Find, load and initialise the command classes (see MooseX-App-Simple for single command applications) * Create automated help and documentation from modules POD and attributes metadata * Read, encode and validate the command line options and positional parameters entered by the user from @ARGV (and possibly %ENV) * Provide helpful error messages if user input cannot be validated ( either missing or wrong attributes or Moose type constraints not satisfied) Commandline options are defined using the 'option' keyword which accepts the same attributes as Moose' 'has' keyword. option 'some_option' => ( is => 'rw', isa => 'Str', ); This is equivalent to has 'some_option' => ( is => 'rw', isa => 'Str', traits => ['AppOption'], # Load extra metaclass cmd_type => 'option', # Set attribute type ); Positional parameters are defined with the 'parameter' keyword parameter 'some_option' => ( is => 'rw', isa => 'Str', ); This is equivalent to has 'some_option' => ( is => 'rw', isa => 'Str', traits => ['AppOption'], cmd_type => 'parameter', ); Read the Tutorial for getting started with a simple MooseX::App command line application. METHODS new_with_command my $myapp_command = MyApp->new_with_command(); This constructor reads the command line arguments and tries to create a command class instance. If it fails it retuns a MooseX::App::Message::Envelope object holding an error message. You can pass a hash of default/fallback params to new_with_command my $obj = MyApp->new_with_command(%default); initialize_command_class my $obj = MyApp->initialize_command_class($command_name,%default); Helper method to instantiate the command class for the given command. GLOBAL OPTIONS app_base app_base 'my_script'; # Defaults to $0 Usually MooseX::App will take the name of the calling wrapper script to construct the program name in various help messages. This name can be changed via the app_base function. app_namespace app_namespace 'MyApp::Commands', 'YourApp::MoreCommands'; Usually MooseX::App will take the package name of the base class as the namespace for commands. This namespace can be changed and you can add multiple extra namespaces. app_fuzzy app_fuzzy(1); # default OR app_fuzzy(0); Enables fuzzy matching of commands and attributes. Is turned on by default. app_strict app_strict(0); # default OR app_strict(1); If strict is enabled the program will terminate with an error message if superfluous/unknown positional parameters are supplied. If disabled all extra parameters will be copied to the extra_argv attribute. The command_strict config in the command classes allows one to set this option individually for each command. app_command_name app_command_name { my ($package) = shift; # munge package name; return $command_name; }; This sub can be used to control how package names should be translated to command names. app_description Set the description. If not set this information will be taken from the Pod DESCRIPTION or OVERVIEW sections. app_usage Set custom usage. If not set this will be taken from the Pod SYNOPSIS or USAGE section. If those sections are not available, the usage information will be autogenerated. GLOBAL ATTRIBUTES All MooseX::App classes will have two extra attributes extra_argv Carries all parameters from @ARGV that were not consumed (only if app_strict is turned off, otherwise superfluous parameters will raise an exception). help_flag Help flag that is set when help was requested. ATTRIBUTE OPTIONS * cmd_tags - Extra tags * cmd_flag - Override option name * cmd_aliases - Alternative option names * cmd_split - Split values * cmd_position - Option/Parameter order Refer to MooseX::App::Meta::Role::Attribute::Option for detailed documentation. METADATA MooseX::App will use your class metadata and POD to construct the commands and helpful error- or usage- messages. These bits of information are utilised and should be provided if possible: * Package names * required options for Moose attributes * documentation options for Moose attributes * Moose type constraints (Bool, ArrayRef, HashRef, Int, Num, and Enum) * POD (NAME, ABSTRACT, DESCRIPTION, USAGE, SYNOPSIS and OVERVIEW sections) * Dzil ABSTRACT tag if no POD is available yet PLUGINS The behaviour of MooseX-App can be customised with plugins. To load a plugin just pass a list of plugin names after the "use MooseX-App" statement. use MooseX::App qw(PluginA PluginB); Currently the following plugins are shipped with MooseX::App * MooseX::App::Plugin::BashCompletion Adds a command that genereates a bash completion script for your application * MooseX::App::Plugin::Color Colorful output for your MooseX::App applications * MooseX::App::Plugin::Config Config files for MooseX::App applications * MooseX::App::Plugin::ConfigHome Config files in users home directory * MooseX::App::Plugin::Env Read options from environment * MooseX::App::Plugin::Typo Handle typos in command names * MooseX::App::Plugin::Version Adds a command to display the version and license of your application * MooseX::App::Plugin::Man Display full manpage Refer to Writing MooseX-App Plugins for documentation on how to create your own plugins. CAVEATS & KNOWN BUGS Startup time may be an issue. If you do not require plugins and ability for fine grained customisation then you should probably use MooX::Options or MooX::Cmd. In some cases - especially when using non-standard class inheritance - you may end up with command classes lacking the help attribute. In this case you need to include the following line in your base class with qw(MooseX::App::Role::Common); SEE ALSO Read the Tutorial for getting started with a simple MooseX::App command line application. For alternatives you can check out MooseX::App::Cmd, MooseX::Getopt, MooX::Options, MooX::Cmd and App::Cmd SUPPORT Please report any bugs or feature requests to "bug-moosex-app@rt.cpan.org", or through the web interface at . I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your report as I make changes. AUTHOR Maroš Kollár CPAN ID: MAROS maros [at] k-1.com http://www.k-1.com CONTRIBUTORS In no particular order: Andrew Jones, George Hartzell, Steve Nolte, Michael G, Thomas Klausner, Yanick Champoux, Edward Baudrez, David Golden, J.R. Mash, Thilo Fester, Gregor Herrmann COPYRIGHT MooseX::App is Copyright (c) 2012-14 Maroš Kollár. This library is free software and may be distributed under the same terms as perl itself. The full text of the licence can be found in the LICENCE file included with this module.