perlman@wivax.UUCP (Gary Perlman) (12/13/84)
What follows is the abstract of my paper for the USENIX conference
next month in Dallas. You can request reprints of the paper from
me directly. I won't be posting the full article to the net.
Gary Perlman
Wang Institute
Tyng Road
Tyngsboro, MA 01879 USA
(617) 649-9731
An Overview of the SETOPT Command Line Option Parser Generator
Gary Perlman
AT&T Bell Laboratories *
Murray Hill, NJ 07974 USA
wivax!perlman
(617) 649-9731
* Now at the Wang Institute of Graduate Studies
ABSTRACT
SETOPT is a set of procedures for generating C functions to parse
command line options for UNIX commands. The parsing routines follow the
standard syntax presented at USENIX by Hemmenway & Armitage but goes
several steps further by providing on-line help, type and range
checking, interactive setting of variables, standard error messages, and
other useful features.
Programmers use a simple language to describe the attributes of options.
For each option, the name, purpose, data type, dimension, range, and
other information are used to generate program code to standardize the
user interface between users and the program, and between the programmer
and the parser. Programmers can assume perfect users are interacting
with their programs because on-line help and diagnostic error messages
tell users what options are available and make sure that legal option
values are supplied. Extra benefits include the ability to generate
summary documents and menu/form-filling interfaces.