Thread overview
std.getopt: Unexpected behavior when using incremental options
Jul 29, 2018
Ky-Anh Huynh
Jul 29, 2018
Cym13
Jul 29, 2018
Ky-Anh Huynh
July 29, 2018
Hi,

I am using std.getopt and expect to parse an incremental option with different names: --long, --longer, -l. The sample code is here

https://gist.github.com/icy/b8ed758b48134b369e854205aeb8f308

excerpt:

[code]
  auto results = getopt(args,
    std.getopt.config.noBundling,
    std.getopt.config.passThrough,
    "longer|long|l+", &s_long
);
[/code]

I don't expect the program also accepts `-long` , unfortunately it does. The default help message also prints incorrect information:

[code]
$ rdmd tests.d  -l -long --long --longer -h
Basic usage:
-long --longer
   -h   --help This help information.
How long it is: 4
Remained: "/tmp/.rdmd-314/rdmd-tests.d-0C7A52ECD8084516F3064EED864D6E86/tests"
[/code]


Did I have something wrong with my code?

Thanks for your reading and support.
July 29, 2018
On Sunday, 29 July 2018 at 09:28:41 UTC, Ky-Anh Huynh wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am using std.getopt and expect to parse an incremental option with different names: --long, --longer, -l. The sample code is here
>
> [...]

I think -long is actually taken as -l -o -n -g here. Since you didn't define -o, -n and -g it prints a usage error.
July 29, 2018
On Sunday, 29 July 2018 at 10:57:06 UTC, Cym13 wrote:
> On Sunday, 29 July 2018 at 09:28:41 UTC, Ky-Anh Huynh wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I am using std.getopt and expect to parse an incremental option with different names: --long, --longer, -l. The sample code is here
>>
>> [...]
>
> I think -long is actually taken as -l -o -n -g here. Since you didn't define -o, -n and -g it prints a usage error.

I think that I've got that. There isn't any actual definition of short/long option names. That means if I provide

[code]
    "l|long|longer+", &s_long
[/code]

getopt will define 6 variants: -l, --l, -long, --long, -longer, --longer, and here `-long`, `-l` and `-longer` are both short:) `Short` isn't related to the length of the option name. It's short because there is only one dash (-). This way using "short" is quite confusing.

Regarding the output of the default help message, I should put `l` at the first position, as in `l|long|longer`. This is slightly different from examples in the official documentation (https://dlang.org/phobos/std_getopt.html) where you are expected to see `long|longer|l+` instead.