c/programming · by matcha_addict@lemy.lol · 2y

In CLI design, how to ask the user for a nested structured input?

Background

I am designing a CLI for a container build tool I am making. It uses Gentoo's Portage behind the scenes

Question

I want to give the user the ability to specify a custom package repository. The repository must have a name, URI and sync type.

custom_repo: {
    uri: 'https://...',
    name: 'custom',
    sync_type: 'git',
}

How do I have the user represent this in the CLI? keep in mind, this is not the main input and is optional.

One way is to make this only provide-able via a config file using JSON or another structured data representation. But I want to see if theres a good way to do it in the CLI

What I am thinking of: command --custom-repo uri='https://...',name=custom,sync_type=git --custom-repo ... [main input]

Is this the best way of doing this?

31 points · 19 comments · view on lemmy.world

19 Comments

chris@programming.dev · 16 pts · 2y (4 replies)

Just pass in the name of a json file as a CLI input (or default the name and act on it if present or use it if indicated [e.g. /U == use json.config]).

xmunk@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 2y

Yea, as a user I'd second the use of a configuration file - that approach tends to be much more convenient to use... especially since most users won't often change these values.

matcha_addict@lemy.lol · 6 pts · 2y (1 reply)

I will definitely make that an option, but I would still want it to be invokable via CLI only if the user chooses. It makes scripting easier sometimes.

bobbykjack@programming.dev · 5 pts · 2y

How about a command-line flag to name an input file, but also process input as JSON, so someone can pipe it to your command or hand-write it if they're crazy?

pupbiru@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 2y

perhaps also useful in this case to document the shortcut of

<(echo ‘{…}’)

since not many people know about it, and it makes your tool work with things specified entirely on the command line rather than temp files

alternatively —config-file and —config-json or similar

making and cleaning up temp files when writing scripts is just such a massive PITA

key@lemmy.keychat.org · 12 pts · 2y

If the json payload is small with finite keys you can support separate args for those keys. If you really need arbitrary json what you have described is fairly reasonable as a shorthand, similar to AWS CLI shorthand.

Honestly passing optional/advanced args as json via CLI isn't usually too bad since you can quote it with single quotes.

SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 2y (9 replies)

Can't this all be deduced from the URI?

https://github.com/org/project.git

The .git suffix indicates git, the project name is the stem (project).

Corngood@lemmy.ml · 8 pts · 2y

Nix does something like this with the protocol specifier: e.g. git+https://...

I'm not sure what name means here exactly, but it might make sense to treat that separately, like git remotes:

tool add [name] git+https://foo

oscar@programming.dev · 2 pts · 2y (7 replies)

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SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 2y (6 replies)

That is an example URI.

oscar@programming.dev · 3 pts · 2y (5 replies)

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SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 2y (4 replies)

Then replace "github.com" with "myawesomeproject.dev". There's more to the URI than just the hostname.

oscar@programming.dev · 3 pts · 2y (2 replies)

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SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 2y (1 reply)

That's not a GitHub format; it's a git format.

oscar@programming.dev · 3 pts · 2y

[ removed ]

oscar@programming.dev · 1 pts · 2y

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notabot@lemm.ee · 5 pts · 2y

For something like that i'd take a parameter like this (repeated as necessary):

--custom-repo==+

for example:

--custom-repo=custom=git+https://github.com/matcha/custom

nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org · 2 pts · 2y

What language? This would be simple with Python's argparse or Go's pflag.

mryessir@lemmy.sdf.org · 2 pts · 2y

command --git-url https://... --alias myalias --svn-url http://... --alias mysvnalias

You may process it as a stack.

When reading within the program from stdin I recommend a state machine.

drre@feddit.de · 2 pts · 2y

I'm having the same problem. this kind of nested argument is quite annoying to program in e.g. argp. i am even thinking of using a minimal forth like parser to do this.

MonkderZweite@feddit.ch · 1 pts · 2y (1 reply)

Ask the user to customize a preset.json?

matcha_addict@lemy.lol · 2 pts · 2y

That is certainly one solution and I plan to make that an option. But I'd still like to make the program invokable without having to write a file.

falsem@kbin.social · 0 pts · 2y (1 reply)

command --custom-repo-uri https://foo.com --custom-repo-name repo_name --custom-repo-sync-type git

matcha_addict@lemy.lol · 1 pts · 2y

There could be multiple custom repos, so it would be difficult to know which uri goes with which repo name, and so on.