stop parsing flags when `--` is provided in command line

[hojerst]

Description

Currently the argument parser doesn't honor a -- in the command line which might be necessary to allow "flag like arguments" to be parsed. (i.e. a regular argument which starts with a -; for example a file name -x).

If this breaks existing behaviour I'd like to have this as an option in the settings.yml at least, although i don't see much reason why this shouldn't be enabled by default as most gnu based cli's already work this way.

[DannyBen]

Have you tried catch_all?

bahsly.yml

name: download
help: Sample minimal application without commands
version: 0.1.0

catch_all: true   # <= this

args:
- name: source
  required: true
  help: URL to download from
- name: target
  help: "Target filename (default: same as source)"

flags:
- long: --force
  short: -f
  help: Overwrite existing files

examples:
- download example.com
- download example.com ./output -f

output

$ ./download src dest -f -- -anything -else can be here
args:
- ${args[--force]} = 1
- ${args[source]} = src
- ${args[target]} = dest

other_args:
- ${other_args[*]} = -anything -else can be here
- ${other_args[0]} = -anything
- ${other_args[1]} = -else
- ${other_args[2]} = can
- ${other_args[3]} = be
- ${other_args[4]} = here

[hojerst]

actually i wasn't aware of this flag (or forgot about it). it would help in cases where the author of the script intentionally wants to grab for example a bash command that should be called (like docker run image cmd... does). however my described usecase is slightly different.

example:

name: inspect
help: Sample minimal application without commands
version: 0.1.0

args:
- name: filename
  required: true
  help: a file on your disk

examples:
- inspect file.txt

sometimes regular arguments look like flags as they begin with a - (for example a actual file which is called -x.yml.). Those files might be created intentionally or by accident sometimes. for something like cat you would just write cat -- -x.yml. So I'm not talking about having additional args in a other_args array, but actually having ${args[filename]}="-x.yml"

what i mean is: in most clis -- means: stop parsing flags at all and consider everything from here a regular argument and not a flag

[DannyBen]

I see. Assuming I can implement it without changing the catch_all behavior - would you be able to test it for your use case using a pre-release / source build?

[hojerst]

Sure. I'm glad if I can help. Bashly is a great framework I use quite a lot.

[DannyBen]

It is implemented in #735

Assuming you have Ruby installed, you can build from source (from the feature branch)

git clone --depth 1 --branch add/end-of-options-delimiter \
   https://github.com/bashly-framework/bashly.git
cd bashly
bundle install
bundle exec run gem install

This installs the branch version of Bashly locally.

If you are uncomfortable with this, I will release a pre-release gem.

[hojerst]

i ran everything in a ruby docker container and generated my project with it. every worked as i would expect it.

[DannyBen]

Excellent. Thanks.

I will merge it, and it will be a part of the 2.0.0 release that comes hopefully soon.
Once I merge you can use the dannyben/bashly:edge image if you want.