Date
2009
Abstract
Programmers often write custom parsers for the command line input of their programs. They do so, in part, because they believe that both their program’s parameterization and their option formats are simple. But as the program evolves, so does the parameterization and the available options. Gradually, option parsing, data structure complexity, and maintenance of related program documentation becomes unwieldy. This article introduces a novel DSL called CLOPS that lets a programmer specify command line options and their complex inter-dependencies in a declarative fashion. The DSL is supported by a tool that generates the following features to support command line option processing: (1) data structures to represent option values, (2) a command line parser that performs validity checks, and (3) command line documentation. We have exercised CLOPS by specifying the options of a small set of programs like ls, gzip, and svn which have complex command line interfaces. These examples are provided with the Open Source release of the CLOPS system.
Supervisor
Description
non-peer-reviewed
Publisher
Citation
IFIP Working Conference on Domain Specific Languages;07/2009
Collections
Lero - The Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Software
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Files
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Janota_2009.pdf
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Keywords
programmers, option formats, DSL, CLOPS
ULRR Identifiers
https://researchrepository.ul.ie/handle/10344/1804
 https://doi.org/10.34961/690
Funding code
Funding Information
Science Foundation Ireland (SFI)
Sustainable Development Goals
External Link
Type
Meetings and Proceedings
Rights
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/1.0/
License