Others

Utilities

You want to write a script that does argument parsing and don’t like Argbash or you just want to find out how awesome it really is? Then read through this list of influences and/or alternatives!

  • Python argparse: The main inspiration: https://docs.python.org/3/library/argparse.html

    • Pros:

      • Works really well.

      • Has more features.

    • Cons:

      • It is Python, we are bash.

      • It has a strict value restriction turned on (analogous to having ARG_RESTRICT_VALUES([no-option-all]) in every script) that can’t be switched off.

    • Argbash says:

  • bash — shflags: The bash framework for argument parsing: https://github.com/kward/shflags

    • Pros:

      • It works great on Linux.

    • Cons:

      • Doesn’t work with Windows bash

      • Doesn’t support long options on OSX.

    • Argbash says:

      • We work the same on all platforms that have bash.

  • getopt: Eternal utility for parsing command-line. This is what powers shflags.

    • Pros:

      • The GNU version can work with long and short optional arguments.

    • Cons:

      • Its use is discouraged — it seems to have some issues, you still need to deal with positional arguments by other means.

  • getopts: bash builtin for parsing command-line.

    • Pros:

      • Being included with bash, it behaves the same on all platforms.

    • Cons:

      • Supports only short optional arguments.

    • Argbash says:

      • argbash>=2.7.0 can generate code that uses getopts in the POSIX mode, so there is no reason any longer to write that code manually.

  • EasyOptions: Ruby utility with a bash interface as well as its pure bash implementation: https://github.com/renatosilva/easyoptions

    • Pros:

      • Very simple to use.

      • Very elegant.

    • Cons:

      • You have to distribute easyoptions.sh with your script.

      • The library itself provides only very basic functionality.

      • The project does not seem to have any tests (as of 07/2016).

    • Argbash says:

      • We have more of nice features.

      • We offer an option to produce battery-included scripts.

      • Our declarations as not so elegant, but they are not bad either.

      • The parsing part of the script generated by Argbash is only as complex as necessary.

  • bash-modules - module argument: bash-modules aims to become a standard bash framework and comes with an argument-parsing treat: https://github.com/vlisivka/bash-modules

    • Pros:

      • Seems to have nice features.

    • Cons:

      • bash-modules have to be available at run-time to run the script.

      • The documentation is poor (as of 07/2016).

    • Argbash says:

      • We have good documentation with examples.

      • We offer an option to produce battery-included scripts.

  • docopt: Umbrella project of parsing code modules for various languages. The interface is based on help messages: http://docopt.org/ The shell interface is called docopts and it is implemented as a standalone executable (in fact a Python script) that consumes the help message of the script it is used in, passed arguments, and exposes collected values via environmental variables.

    • Pros:

      • The help message as an interface is convenient.

    • Cons:

      • You need docopts installed in every environment where you run scripts that use it.

    • Argbash says:

Learning resources

Do you want to write the argument-parsing part of your script yourself or you want to improve Argbash? Then read through this list of high-quality learning resources!