Question

So I’m working off one of the examples for Boost program_options library, and I wanted to try setting a default value for one of the multiple-values/ vector-values, but it doesn’t seem to work. As I think is suggested here to work.

What I’ve modified is on about line 40:

    po::options_description config("Configuration");
    config.add_options()
        ("optimization", po::value<int>(&opt)->default_value(10), 
              "optimization level")
        ("include-path,I", o::value< vector<string> >()->default_value(vector<string>(),"SOMETHING")->composing(), "include path")
        ;

When I compile this small change, I expect that when no -I option is passed that the “SOMETHING” is added to the include-path argument list.

Does anyone have any idea why this is not the case?

Here is the complete source code:

#include <boost/program_options.hpp>
namespace po = boost::program_options;


#include <iostream>
#include <fstream>
#include <iterator>
using namespace std;

// A helper function to simplify the main part.
template<class T>
ostream& operator<<(ostream& os, const vector<T>& v)
{
    copy(v.begin(), v.end(), ostream_iterator<T>(cout, " ")); 
    return os;
}


int main(int ac, char* av[])
{
    try {
        int opt;

        // Declare a group of options that will be 
        // allowed only on command line
        po::options_description generic("Generic options");
        generic.add_options()
            ("version,v", "print version string")
            ("help", "produce help message")    
            ;

        // Declare a group of options that will be 
        // allowed both on command line and in
        // config file
        po::options_description config("Configuration");
        config.add_options()
            ("optimization", po::value<int>(&opt)->default_value(10), 
                  "optimization level")
            ("include-path,I", 
                 po::value< vector<string> >()->default_value(vector<string>(),"SOMETHING")->composing(), 
                 "include path")
            ;

        // Hidden options, will be allowed both on command line and
        // in config file, but will not be shown to the user.
        po::options_description hidden("Hidden options");
        hidden.add_options()
            ("input-file", po::value< vector<string> >(), "input file")
            ;


        po::options_description cmdline_options;
        cmdline_options.add(generic).add(config).add(hidden);

        po::options_description config_file_options;
        config_file_options.add(config).add(hidden);

        po::options_description visible("Allowed options");
        visible.add(generic).add(config);

        po::positional_options_description p;
        p.add("input-file", -1);

        po::variables_map vm;
        store(po::command_line_parser(ac, av).
              options(cmdline_options).positional(p).run(), vm);

        ifstream ifs("multiple_sources.cfg");
        store(parse_config_file(ifs, config_file_options), vm);
        notify(vm);

        if (vm.count("help")) {
            cout << visible << "\n";
            return 0;
        }

        if (vm.count("version")) {
            cout << "Multiple sources example, version 1.0\n";
            return 0;
        }

        if (vm.count("include-path"))
        {
            cout << "Include paths are: " 
                 << vm["include-path"].as< vector<string> >() << "\n";
        }

        if (vm.count("input-file"))
        {
            cout << "Input files are: " 
                 << vm["input-file"].as< vector<string> >() << "\n";
        }

        cout << "Optimization level is " << opt << "\n";                
    }
    catch(exception& e)
    {
        cout << e.what() << "\n";
        return 1;
    }    
    return 0;
}

Answer 1

For the “default_value” method, the first parameter is the real value that you wish your option to be, the second value being only the textual representation (for display in –help) when boost cannot infer it.

So, the solution to your problem is to write:

po::value< vector<string> >()->default_value(
      vector<string>(1, "SOMETHING"), "SOMETHING")->composing(),

This way, you are saying that the default value is a vector with a single element “SOMETHING”, and that you want to display “SOMETHING” in the help, such as:

Configuration:
  --optimization arg (=10)              optimization level
  -I [ --include-path ] arg (=SOMETHING)
                                        include path