Question

What if I wanted to parse this:

java MyProgram -r opt1 -S opt2 arg1 arg2 arg3 arg4 --test -A opt3

And the result I want in my program is:

regular Java args[]  of size=4
org.apache.commons.cli.Options[]  of size=3
org.apache.commons.cli.Options[] #2 of size=1

I would prefer to use Apache Commons CLI, but the documentation is a little unclear about the case I present above. Specifically, the documentation doesn’t tell you how to handle options of the 3rd type I specify below:

1. options with a "-" char
2. options with a "--" char
3. options without any marker, or "bare args"

I wish that Apache Commons CLI would work but STILL be able to pass regular args to the program if those args didn’t have a option prefix. Maybe it does but the documentation doesnt say so as I read through it…

Answer 1

You could just do it manually.

NB: might be better to use a HashMap instead of an inner class for the opts.

/** convenient "-flag opt" combination */
private class Option {
     String flag, opt;
     public Option(String flag, String opt) { this.flag = flag; this.opt = opt; }
}

static public void main(String[] args) {
    List<String> argsList = new ArrayList<String>();  
    List<Option> optsList = new ArrayList<Option>();
    List<String> doubleOptsList = new ArrayList<String>();

    for (int i = 0; i < args.length; i++) {
        switch (args[i].charAt(0)) {
        case '-':
            if (args[i].length < 2)
                throw new IllegalArgumentException("Not a valid argument: "+args[i]);
            if (args[i].charAt(1) == '-') {
                if (args[i].length < 3)
                    throw new IllegalArgumentException("Not a valid argument: "+args[i]);
                // --opt
                doubleOptsList.add(args[i].substring(2, args[i].length));
            } else {
                if (args.length-1 == i)
                    throw new IllegalArgumentException("Expected arg after: "+args[i]);
                // -opt
                optsList.add(new Option(args[i], args[i+1]));
                i++;
            }
            break;
        default:
            // arg
            argsList.add(args[i]);
            break;
        }
    }
    // etc
}