cargs

What is cargs?

cargs is a C library for argument parsing, as a more robust alternative to getopt and other antiquated frameworks.

Install

Most people on this page just want to install cargs.

Here's how:

For debian/ubuntu based systems, download and install cargs_0.2.1_amd64.deb

For fedora based systems, download and install cargs_0.2.1_x86_64.rpm

macOS: binaries coming soon

If your OS/package manager isn't up there, do this:

Download and unzip: cargs-0.2.1.zip

Now, open a terminal and run:

./configure && make && sudo make install

Building

Release

Download the source, and run ./configure && make && make check && make install

Source

You need autotools, and possibly libcheck

Now, run autoreconf -i && ./configure && make

Tutorial

For a lot of examples, see the tests/ folder for test cases.

Hello World example

// greet.c


#include <stdio.h>
#include "cargs.h"

int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    // this should be the first call that is made.
    cargs_init("Your Project Name", "1.2.3", argc, argv);

    // name, email  this is used for --authors
    cargs_add_author("Cade Brown", "[email protected]");

    // add two possible keys (the last can be NULL for no second version)
    cargs_add_arg_str("-g", "--greeting", "the greeting");
    cargs_add_default("-g", "Hello");

    // when the argument is left as "", that means you don't have to add any prefix.
    // so, if you run `./greet Mars`, the flag "" will have `Mars` in it
    cargs_add_arg_str("", NULL, "enter your name");
    cargs_add_default("", "World");


    // this parses the arguments
    cargs_parse();

    // with cargs_get, you can use the shorthand or longhand form of the argument
    printf("%s, %s!\nHow are you?\n", cargs_get("-g"), cargs_get(""));

    return 0;
}

Run and compile: gcc greet.c -lcargs -o greet

Now, run ./greet -h to view usage info.

This will print out:

Your Project Name v1.2.3

--info                                  show info
-h, --help                              show help / usage
--authors                               show authors
-g=S                                    the greeting
S                                       enter your name

Authors:
  Cade Brown <[email protected]>

If you run ./greet, the greeting will come out:

Hello, World!
How are you?

You can change the name, like ./greet Cade:

Hello, Cade!
How are you?

You can change the greeting, like ./greet Cade -g=Hey or ./greet Cade -g Hey (the = is optional):

Hey, Cade!
How are you?