clig --- Command Line Interpreter Generator

... to all those still using C.

For the impatient and those who know

You can download the gzipped PostScript documentation or the latest release as |CLIGTARGZ| or as |CLIGRPM|, which includes the documentation.

If you know clig already, you may be interested in the changes since the last release.

If you feel the need to download older versions, have a look at the software-directory.

Remark: clig is not CLIG. If you were looking for the Clig Grapher for linguistic data structures by Karsten Konrad, you should go to the CLIG homepage . Both tools don't have anything to do with each other. They share their names only due to a historical coincidence.

What is clig?

Clig uses a simple description to generate C-code for a function

Cmdline *parseCmdline(int argc, char **argv)

which parses the command-line of a typical C-program and returns the result in a structure of type Cmdline.

However, one of the main reasons to use clig is maybe the automatic generation of a usage()-function which is always up-to-date with respect to the options actually understood by the program.

An Example

Consider the following specification: Int -rgb rgb \ "specifies a color by its red, green and blue components"\ count=3,3 \ range=0,255 It shows most of the features available in clig. Here an option -rgb is declared with parameters of type int. Within the C-program, it will be called rgb. The next line contains in quotes a usage string to be displayed by the generated usage()-function. The line count=3,3 specifies that the option -rgb must be followed by exactly 3 integer values. Finally the allowed range for the three values is specified.

An example demonstrating most features of clig is also available.

Currently, clig understands the following option types:

Flag: is a boolean option (or flag) without parameters.
Float: is an option with zero or more floating point parameters.
Int: accepts zero or more integer parameters.
String: allows arbitrary strings as parameters.

For floating point, integer and string valued options a range can be specified for the number of allowed parameters. The allowed range for floating point and integer option values can also be specified.

Features missing on my todo-list

neural net type command line parser,
fuzzy logic command line parser,
inheritance hierarchy for command line options,
visual basic support,
command lines shorter than 128 characters,
generation of WINDOS program group,
Ole, Nils or Jens support,
InactiveX-aware buzzword-recognition.

Looks like Java is missing on the list? Yes, because Jclig is already available for almost a year. But since I am not (yet) actively programming in Java, it is not ready to ship.

Requirements

Clig is implemented in Tcl and you will not be able to make it work without. The generated C-code is Tcl-free.

Please send comments and suggestions to Harald Kirsch. Flames expressing the opinion that getopt() is the only way to go are silently ignored.