chancleta

Python library for creating command line interfaces in a composable way via configuration files.
Supports .toml, .json, .yaml. and (if you'd like to be more adventurous) .xml.

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How to use

• Describe configurations in a chancleta.toml file.
  (File format could vary between .toml, .json, .yaml and .xml as long as the name remains the same.)
  Add mandatory 'meta' data with general information about your program

[meta]
src = "testoo.util.commands"
prog = "foo"
version = "0.1.0"
description = "Test my new flip flops"
usage = "Take that jive Jack, put it in your pocket 'til I get back"

'src' points to the directory where the corresponding python functions are to be found and called with arguments read from the terminal

• Configure subcommands as separate tables (objects if you're using JSON)

[yes]
description = "Simple yes function"
argument = { name = "text", help = "Some dummy text" }
option = { name = "should-repeat", short = "r", flag = "True", help = "should repeat text 5 times" }
help = "yes func"
function = "yes"

function shows the name of the python function to be called

• If you have multiple arguments/options - put them as inline tables inside arrays

[echo]
arguments = [
    { name = "text", help = "Some dummy text" },
    { name = "mark", type = "str", help = "Final mark" },
]
options = [
    { name = "other-text", short = "o", default = "Panda", dest = "other", help = "Some other dummy text" },
    { name = "delimiter", default = ", ", help = "use DELIM instead of TAB for field delimiter" },
    { name = "num", default = 42, type = "int", help = "some random number to make things pretty" }
]
function = "echo"

chancleta supports advanced features such as choices, nargs, dest (for options), type validation

[maybe]
argument = { name = "number", type = "int", choices = [3, 5, 8], help = "Some meaningless number" }
option = { name = "other-number", type = "int", nargs = "*", choices = [1, 2], dest = "other", help = "Other marvelous number" }
function = "maybe"

• For boolean flags you could use

options = [
   { name = "should-log", flag = "False", default = true },
   { name = "should-repeat", flag = "True"}
]

which is equivalent to

action="store_false"...
action="store_true"...

• If no short name is given for an option, the first letter of the full name is used

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• Inside your program import the Chancleta object, pass a path to the directory where your config file lives and call the parse method

from chancleta import Chancleta

def main():
    Chancleta("./testoo/config").parse()

If no path is given chancleta will try to find the config file inside the root directory of your project