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Add recommendations for option parsing聽#35
Description
In C++ my experience says:
- If it is okay to use boost, use boost::program_options, it is a solid library.
- It is often not okay to use boost. The headers alone are > 50 MB 馃檧 and contain > 13,000 files. And boost::program_options requires linking a precompiled library. This is massive weight and complexity for a build system just to parse options.
- So for lightweight C++ libs that might not otherwise have any dependencies we need to recommend a very lightweight option parsing solution.
Activity
springmeyer commentedon Sep 10, 2017
libraries to investigate:
joto commentedon Sep 10, 2017
I usually just use
getopt_long()available in libc for simpler cases. The interface is C and not C++ and slightly ugly. But for many cases this is simple enough and doesn't require an extra dependency. If this is not enough it is time to switch toboost::program_optionsanyway.joto commentedon Nov 7, 2017
Something to investigate: Clara "A simple to use, composable, command line parser for C++ 11 and beyond". By the same guy who created the Catch unit test framework.
springmeyer commentedon Jan 4, 2018
Just learned from @kkaefer that mbgl is using https://github.com/Taywee/args for demo apps - which @brunoabinader brought in.
springmeyer commentedon Feb 21, 2018
watching progress on Clara at mapbox/vtzero@70fc232. I'm in support for having Clara be our recommendation if @joto's experience is solid this week in this port.
joto commentedon Feb 22, 2018
My experience with Clara so far:
Positive:
Negative:
-char as parameter (often used to denote stdin) is not possible.I think it is too early to recommend this as a standard tool, but I think collecting some experience with it is probably a good idea. (That's why I went ahead and used it in the relatively simple vtzero examples.)
springmeyer commentedon Feb 22, 2018
馃憤 looking forward to learning more as you use it.