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command-line-args

A mature, feature-complete library to parse command-line options.

Synopsis

You can set options using the main notation standards (learn more). These commands are all equivalent, setting the same values:

$ example --verbose --timeout=1000 --src one.js --src two.js
$ example --verbose --timeout 1000 --src one.js two.js
$ example -vt 1000 --src one.js two.js
$ example -vt 1000 one.js two.js

To access the values, first create a list of option definitions describing the options your application accepts. The type property is a setter function (the value supplied is passed through this), giving you full control over the value received.

const optionDefinitions = [
  { name: 'verbose', alias: 'v', type: Boolean },
  { name: 'src', type: String, multiple: true, defaultOption: true },
  { name: 'timeout', alias: 't', type: Number }
]

Next, parse the options using commandLineArgs():

const commandLineArgs = require('command-line-args')
const options = commandLineArgs(optionDefinitions)

options now looks like this:

{
  src: [
    'one.js',
    'two.js'
  ],
  verbose: true,
  timeout: 1000
}

Advanced usage

Beside the above typical usage, you can configure command-line-args to accept more advanced syntax forms.

• Command-based syntax (git style) in the form:

  $ executable <command> [options]
  

  For example.

  $ git commit --squash -m "This is my commit message"
  

• Command and sub-command syntax (docker style) in the form:

  $ executable <command> [options] <sub-command> [options]
  

  For example.

  $ docker run --detached --image centos bash -c yum install -y httpd
  

Usage guide generation

A usage guide (typically printed when --help is set) can be generated using command-line-usage. See the examples below and read the documentation for instructions how to create them.

A typical usage guide example.

The polymer-cli usage guide is a good real-life example.

Further Reading

There is plenty more to learn, please see the wiki for examples and documentation.

Install

$ npm install command-line-args --save

© 2014-20 Lloyd Brookes <[email protected]>.

Tested by test-runner. Documented by jsdoc-to-markdown.