/ 
AppConfig-Std-1.03
River stage one • 3 direct dependents • 4 total dependents
/ AppConfig::Std

NAME

AppConfig::Std - subclass of AppConfig which provides standard options

SYNOPSIS

use AppConfig::Std;

$config = AppConfig::Std->new();

# all AppConfig methods supported
$config->define('foo');            # define variable foo
$config->set('foo', 25);           # setting a variable
$val = $config->get('foo');        # getting variable
$val = $config->foo();             # shorthand for getting

$config->args(\@ARGV);             # parse command-line
$config->file(".myconfigrc")       # read config file

DESCRIPTION

AppConfig::Std is a Perl5 module which provides a set of standard configuration variables and command-line switches. It is implemented as a subclass of AppConfig, which provides a general mechanism for handling global configuration variables.

The features provided by AppConfig::Std are:

  • Standard command-line arguments: -help, -doc, -version, -verbose, and -debug. These are described below.

  • The ARGCOUNT default is set to 1. This means that by default all switches are expected to take a value. To change this, set the ARGCOUNT parameter when defining the variable:

    $config->define('verbose', { ARGCOUNT => 0 } );

Please read the copious documentation for AppConfig to find out what else you can do with this module.

STANDARD OPTIONS

The module adds five standard configuration variables and command-line switches. You can define additional variables as you would with AppConfig.

HELP

The -help switch will result in a short help message. This is generated using Pod::Usage, which displays the OPTIONS section of your pod. The script will exit with an exit value of 0.

DOC

The -doc switch will result in the entire documentation being formatted to the screen. This is also done with Pod::Usage. The script will exit with an exit value of 0.

VERSION

The -version switch will display the version of the invoking script. This assumes that you have defined $VERSION in your script with something like the following:

use vars qw( $VERSION );
$VERSION = sprintf("%d.%02d", q$Revision: 1.3 $ =~ /(\d+)\.(\d+)/);

The script will exit with an exit value of 0.

DEBUG

The -debug switch just sets the debug variable. This is useful for displaying information in debug mode:

$foobar->dump() if $config->debug;

VERBOSE

The -verbose switch just sets the verbose variable. This is useful for displaying verbose information as a script runs:

print STDERR "Running foobar\n" if $config->verbose;

TODO

Please let me know if you have ideas for additional switches, or other modifications. Things currently being mulled:

  • Support brief switches, such as -h as well as -help.

  • Test-suite.

  • Include a sample script called mkscript, which would create a template script along with Makefile.PL, MANIFEST, etc. Kinda of a h2xs for scripts.

EXAMPLE

The following is the outline of a simple script which illustrates use of the AppConfig::Std module:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use AppConfig::Std;

use vars qw( $VERSION );
$VERSION = '1.0';

my $config = AppConfig::Std->new();

# parse command-line and handle std switches
$config->args(\@ARGV);

exit 0;

__END__

=head1 NAME

standard pod format documentation

The pod documentation is expected to have the NAME, SYNOPSIS, DESCRIPTION, and OPTIONS sections. See the documentation for pod2man for more details.

SEE ALSO

AppConfig

Andy Wardley's module for unifying command-line switches and cofiguration files into the notion of configuration variables. AppConfig::Std requires version 1.52+ of the module, which is available from CPAN:

http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/AppConfig/
Pod::Usage

Brad Appleton's module for extracting usage information out of a file's pod. This is used for the -doc and -help switches. Available from CPAN:

http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Pod/
perlpod

Documentation from the perl distribution which describes the pod format.

pod2man

Particularly the section in the documentation titled Anatomy of a Proper Man Page. AppConfig::Std uses Pod::Usage, which assumes well-formed pod.

AUTHOR

Neil Bowers <neilb@cre.canon.co.uk>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 1998-2001 Canon Research Centre Europe. All rights reserved.

This script is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.