cyamli

A command line tool to generate interfaces for command line tools from YAML-based CLI schemas.

Overview

Developing console apps involves defining and parsing command line interfaces (CLIs) such as command line arguments, which consist of subcommands, options, and positional arguments.

cyamli is a schema-based code generator that generates APIs (Application Programming Interfaces, such as types and functions) to handle typed CLIs. The schema of a typed CLI can be written in YAML according to the JSON schema at https://github.com/Jumpaku/cyamli/blob/main/schema/cli.schema.yaml ( JSON version is also available at https://github.com/Jumpaku/cyamli/blob/main/schema/cli.schema.yaml ).

Motivation

• Schema-based approach leveraging standardized and consistent sources.
• Promoting typed CLIs for the benefits of static checking and code completion.
• Reducing boilerplate by automatically generating the necessary code.

Installation

Using Go

go install github.com/Jumpaku/cyamli@latest

Using Docker

docker run -i -v $(pwd):/workspace ghcr.io/jumpaku/cyamli:latest cyamli

Downloading executable binary files

https://github.com/Jumpaku/cyamli/releases

Note that the downloaded executable binary file may require a security confirmation before it can be run.

Building from source

git clone https://github.com/Jumpaku/cyamli.git
cd cyamli
go install .

Usage with an example

Assume a situation where you need to develop a console app in Go to fetch information from a database.

Usage of cyamli is as follows:

1. Define a CLI as a YAML file.
2. Generate the API to parse the CLI in Go.
3. Assign functions to the generated API.

Define a CLI as a YAML file

The following YAML file, cli.yaml, defines a CLI for the example console app.

name: demo
description: demo app to get table information from databases
subcommands:
  list:
    description: list tables
    options:
      -config:
        description: path to config file
        short: -c
  fetch:
    description: show information of tables
    options:
      -config:
        description: path to config file
        short: -c
      -verbose:
        description: show detailed contents for specified tables
        short: -v
        type: boolean
    arguments:
      - name: tables
        variadic: true
        description: names of tables to be described

Generate API to parse the CLI in Go

The following command reads a schema from cli.yaml and writes the Go API into cli.gen.go.

cyamli generate golang -schema-path=cli.yaml -out-path=cli.gen.go

cli.gen.go includes the following API:

// CLI represents a root command.
type CLI struct
// NewCLI returns a CLI object.
func NewCLI() CLI
// Run parses command line arguments args and calls a corresponding function assigned in cli.
func Run(cli CLI, args []string) error
// GetDoc returns a help message corresponding to subcommand.
func GetDoc(subcommand []string) string

Assign functions to the generated API.

NewCLI() returns an object cli which represents a root command, and its descendant objects represent subcommands. Each of them has a FUNC field. A function assigned to this field will be called by Run(cli, os.Args).

The following code snippet demonstrates an implementation for the example console app.

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"os"
)

func main() {
	cli := NewCLI()
	cli.FUNC = func(subcommand []string, input CLI_Input, inputErr error) (err error) {
		fmt.Println(input, inputErr)
		fmt.Println(GetDoc(subcommand))
		return nil
	}
	cli.List.FUNC = func(subcommand []string, input CLI_List_Input, inputErr error) (err error) {
		fmt.Println(input, inputErr)
		fmt.Println(GetDoc(subcommand))
		return nil
	}
	cli.Fetch.FUNC = func(subcommand []string, input CLI_Fetch_Input, inputErr error) (err error) {
		fmt.Println(input, inputErr)
		fmt.Println(GetDoc(subcommand))
		return nil
	}
	if err := Run(cli, os.Args); err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
}

The example console app can be executed as follows:

go run main.go cli.gen.go list -c=config.yaml
go run main.go cli.gen.go fetch -c=config.yaml -v table1 table2

Details

Supported programming languages

The following programming languages are currently supported:

• Go
• Python3
• Documentation in text, HTML, and Markdown

Handling command line arguments

Command line arguments according to the following syntax can be handled by the generated API.

<program> <subcommand> [<option>|<argument>]... [-- [<argument>]...]

• <program> is the path to your executable file.
• <subcommand> is a sequence of tokens, which represents a path in the command tree illustrated in a defined CLI schema.
  • Each element of <subcommand> must match the regular expression ^[a-z][a-z0-9]*$.
  • <subcommand> may be empty, which means the execution of the root command.
• <option> represents an option, which is a token in form of <option_name>[=<option_value>].
  • <option_name> must match the regular expression ^(-[a-z][a-z0-9]*)+$ (or ^-[a-z]$ in short version).
  • <option_value> must be a string that can be parsed as a value of the type of the option.
  • =<option_value> can be omitted if the type of the option is boolean.
• <argument> represents an argument, which must be a string that can be parsed as a value of the type of the argument.
  • Tokens after -- are handled as arguments even if prefixed by -.

Usage of cyamli command

The documentation for cyamli command is provided at https://github.com/Jumpaku/cyamli/blob/main/cyamli-docs.md .