README

PHP CLI Helper

PHP CLI Helper was created to make developing PHP command line tools easy. It currently supports command line option parsing and validation.

Usage Summary

The main class is the CLIHelper\Helper. You will tell this class all of the options you want to support and how you want that option to behave. After you tell the helper to parse the options, it will validate that the user has not violated any of the rules you defined for how your options should behave. If violations are found, the user receives a help message showing them how the option are suppose to work and which option rule they violated. If no violations are found, you then user the helper object to retrieve values for options and determine which options the user specified.

Usage Example

Code

#!/usr/bin/php
<?php

require(dirname(__FILE__) . '/../vendor/autoload.php');

use CLIHelper\Helper;

$helper = new Helper();
$helper->newOption()
    ->withName("file-in")
    ->withHelp("Input file to be processed")
    ->withShort("-i")
    ->withLong("--file-in")
    ->required()
    ->build();
$helper->newOption()
    ->withName("file-out")
    ->withHelp("Output file for processing result")
    ->withShort("-o")
    ->withLong("--file-out")
    ->required()
    ->build();
$helper->newOption()
    ->withName("verbose")
    ->boolean()
    ->withHelp("Display verbose output")
    ->withShort("v")
    ->withLong("verbose")
    ->build();

$helper->parse();

# Reading options
if ($helper->getValue('verbose')) {
    print 'Reading in file "' . $helper->getValue('file-in') . '" and saving output to "' . $helper->getValue('file-out') . '"' . "\n";
}

Invocation

$./sample-script.php

Option -i or --file-in is required
Option -o or --file-out is required

Usage: sample-script.php <-i VALUE | --file-in VALUE> <-o VALUE | --file-out VALUE> [-h | --help] [-v | --verbose]
         -h, --help : Displays this message
      -i, --file-in : Input file to be processed
     -o, --file-out : Output file for processing result
      -v, --verbose : Display verbose output

Adding Options

There are two ways to add options. You can use the CLIHelper\OptionBuilder class, which can get using the convenience method ->newOption() on CLIHelper\Helper. You can also create your own CLIHelper\Optionobject and call->addOption($option)onCLIHelper\Helper`.

Options can either by of type Option::TYPE_BOOLEAN or Option::TYPE_VALUE, the default is Option::TYPE_VALUE. Option::TYPE_BOOLEAN options are options that are either on or off, such as the common "verbose" option. It takes no value, it's either provided on the command line or it is not. Option::TYPE_VALUE options read a value in that comes on the comman line right after the option. An example would be --file-in filename where --file-in must have a value provided along with it.

Example using ->addOption($option)

#!/usr/bin/php
<?php

require(dirname(__FILE__) . '/../vendor/autoload.php');

use CLIHelper\Helper;
use CLIHelper\Option;

$helper = new Helper();

$option = new Option();
$option->setName("verbose");
$option->setShortOpt("-v");
$option->setLongOpt("--verbose");
$option->setType(Option::TYPE_BOOLEAN);
$option->setHelp("Display verbose output");
$helper->addOption($option);

$helper->parse();

Example using ->newOption()

#!/usr/bin/php
<?php

require(dirname(__FILE__) . '/../vendor/autoload.php');

use CLIHelper\Helper;

$helper = new Helper();
$helper->newOption()
    ->withName("verbose")
    ->boolean()
    ->withHelp("Display verbose output")
    ->withShort("v")
    ->withLong("verbose")
    ->build();

$helper->parse();