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optparse-applicative: Command line options parsing

With optparse-applicative, you declare your program’s options in one place, and get nicely formatted --help text and bash auto-completion for free.

API docs

A “getting started” guide and API documentation can be found here. There’s plenty of good information in the API docs.

Basic example

Here’s an example:

import Data.Semigroup ((<>))
import Options.Applicative

data Opts = Opts
    { optFlag :: !Bool
    , optVal :: !String
    }

main :: IO ()
main = do
    opts <- execParser optsParser
    putStrLn
        (concat ["Hello, ", optVal opts, ", the flag is ", show (optFlag opts)])
  where
    optsParser :: ParserInfo Opts
    optsParser =
        info
            (helper <*> versionOption <*> programOptions)
            (fullDesc <> progDesc "optparse example" <>
             header
                 "optparse-example - a small example program for optparse-applicative")
    versionOption :: Parser (a -> a)
    versionOption = infoOption "0.0" (long "version" <> help "Show version")
    programOptions :: Parser Opts
    programOptions =
        Opts <$> switch (long "some-flag" <> help "Set the flag") <*>
        strOption
            (long "some-value" <> metavar "VALUE" <> value "default" <>
             help "Override default name")

Without arguments, this program outputs Hello, default! The flag is False. If you run this program with the --help argument, you get this output:

optparse example

Usage: optparse-example.hs [--version] [--help] [--some-flag]
                           [--some-value VALUE]
  A small example program for optparse-applicative

Available options:
  --version                Show version
  --help                   Show this help text
  --some-flag              Set the flag
  --some-value VALUE       Override default name

Now use the arguments --some-flag --some-value world, and the output changes to: Hello, world! The flag is True.

In addition, --version will display the version and exit immediately.

Sub-commands example

It’s also easy to create a program with multiple sub-commands:

{-#LANGUAGE ScopedTypeVariables#-}

import Data.Semigroup ((<>))
import Options.Applicative

data Opts = Opts
    { optGlobalFlag :: !Bool
    , optCommand :: !Command
    }

data Command
    = Create String
    | Delete

main :: IO ()
main = do
    (opts :: Opts) <- execParser optsParser
    case optCommand opts of
        Create name -> putStrLn ("Created the thing named " ++ name)
        Delete -> putStrLn "Deleted the thing!"
    putStrLn ("global flag: " ++ show (optGlobalFlag opts))
  where
    optsParser :: ParserInfo Opts
    optsParser =
        info
            (helper <*> versionOption <*> programOptions)
            (fullDesc <> progDesc "optparse subcommands example" <>
             header
                 "optparse-sub-example - a small example program for optparse-applicative with subcommands")
    versionOption :: Parser (a -> a)
    versionOption = infoOption "0.0" (long "version" <> help "Show version")
    programOptions :: Parser Opts
    programOptions =
        Opts <$> switch (long "global-flag" <> help "Set a global flag") <*>
        hsubparser (createCommand <> deleteCommand)
    createCommand :: Mod CommandFields Command
    createCommand =
        command
            "create"
            (info createOptions (progDesc "Create a thing"))
    createOptions :: Parser Command
    createOptions =
        Create <$>
        strArgument (metavar "NAME" <> help "Name of the thing to create")
    deleteCommand :: Mod CommandFields Command
    deleteCommand =
        command
            "delete"
            (info (pure Delete) (progDesc "Delete the thing"))

Now you can pass the arguments create foo, and the output will be:

Created the thing named foo
global flag: False

In this case the create subcommand only has a single option, but as with global options you can put together multiple option parsers using the Applicative operators (Constructor <$> arg1 <*> arg2 <*> ...).

Require one option out of a group of possibilities

The parser’s Alternative instance lets you require one argument out of a group of possibilities by separating them with <|>. For example, (strOption (long "foo") <|> strOption (long "bar")) requires either the --foo or --bar option.

Parsing other option types

So far, we have used strOption to parse a simple String option, but this will not work if your option has a different datatype such as Int. For this case, you can usually use option auto instead, which will use the Read instance to parse the argument, and fail gracefully if it cannot be parsed.

It’s also possible to define your own reader and pass it to option for custom parsing. For example, this will parse a date in the “Jun 12, 1977” format:

import Data.Time

dayReader :: ReadM Day
dayReader = eitherReader $ arg ->
    case parseTimeM True defaultTimeLocale "%b %d, %Y" arg of
        Nothing -> Left ("Cannot parse date: " ++ arg)
        Just day -> Right day

Then use option dayReader (long "some-date") for the option parser.

For options of type Text, you have to do things a bit differently. Using option auto would require quotes around the argument value (which, in a shell, means escaping the quotes like "text") since that’s what the Read instance expects. Instead, use the parser’s Functor instance to pack a regular String to Text. For example, fmap T.pack (strOption (long "some-text")). Better yet, define textOption:

import qualified Data.Text as T

textOption :: Mod OptionFields String -> Parser T.Text
textOption = fmap T.pack . strOption

Other parsers and options

These examples have only shown a few of the types of option parsers (switch strOption, etc.) and their options (long, help, etc.), but you can read the haddocks for Options.Applicative.Builder for the full list. It’s worth browsing through the whole thing to get a sense of all the possibilities.

Package version number and Git commit ID

It’s often nice take the version number from your Cabal package rather than have to repeat it in the source code. To do that, import Paths_your_package (version) (adjust “your_package” to match your package’s name). It’s also nice to include the Git commit ID of your project in the --version output for traceability, which the gitrev library makes easy.

Here’s an example that puts them together. Notice that you must enable the TemplateHaskell extension for $(gitHash).

{-# LANGUAGE TemplateHaskell #-}
import Data.Version (showVersion)
import Development.GitRev (gitHash)
import Options.Applicative
import Paths_optparse_example (version)

main :: IO ()
main = do
    s <- execParser optsParser
    print s
  where
    optsParser = info (helper <*> versionOption <*> strArgument mempty) mempty
    versionOption =
        infoOption
            (concat [showVersion version, " ", $(gitHash)])
            (long "version" <> help "Show version")

Now the --version output looks like this: 0.1.0.0 9cc1dbd020c2a42e2bd93204d517470c5781bbf2.

Using bash auto-completion

Every program using optparse-applicative gets hidden arguments to support bash auto-completion. For your own personal use, you run this or add it this to your .bashrc:

eval "$(myprog --bash-completion-script myprog)"

To install the bash completion system-wide, put the output of –bash-completion-script where your system looks for it. For example, on Ubuntu:

myprog --bash-completion-script myprog >/etc/bash_completion.d/myprog

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