Any interest for a parser class?

13 Jan 2002

      Dear all,
I have written a parser class and I wanted to know whether it could be of
any interest to be included in the boost system. Here is a short description
of it.
This class is meant to be used in two ways, either to be included in another
class as an inherited class and/or to be included in the main routine.

The first use is for classes containing fields to be initialised with some
values. So far it handles intrinsic C++ types and STL vectors of intrinsics.

As an example, the class Parser can be used in the class Foo as

class Foo : public Parser {
Foo::Foo(int nargs, char *args[]);
private:
	enum { var1_enum, ... };
	int var1;
....
};

The Foo constructor that uses the Parser feature looks like
Foo::Foo(nargs, args, ....) :  Parser(nargs, args), var1(default_var1), ...
{
// Register class
Parser::RegisterClass("Foo");
Parser::RegisterPackage(package, version, copyright);

// Insert options and aliases to parse a value to var1
// the Any constructor is used to register the default value
Parser::InsertOption(var1_enum,"var1","var1_type","var1_comment", Any(var1));
// Insert alias to option
Parser::InsertOptionAlias(var1_enum, "var1_alias1");
Parser::InsertOptionAlias(var1_enum, "var1_alias2");
....
// Possibility to add a "debug level option" that takes an int argument,
// the default value is 0
Parser::ParseLevelDebugOption("debug_level_option_name");
// the member function int Parser::DebugLevel() can be used thereafter to
// check the this value
if (Parser::DebugLevel() > 50)
	cout << "Debug level is " << Parser::DebugLevel() << endl;
}

Then a member function Foo::ParseParameters() method could look like
void Foo::ParseParameters()
{
// The ParseOption family member functions return a boolean indicated
// whether the var1 has been parsed
if (Parser::ParseOption(var1_enum,var1))
	cout << "var1    = " << var1 << " parsed." << endl;
// Other ParseOption member functions are
// * Parser::ParseOption(var1_enum,var1,"filename")
//     parse the filename "filename" instead of the command line
// * Parser::ParseOptioninFileonCmdLine(var1_enum,var1)
//     if the option -i/--input[=]paramter_file is on the command line then
//     parse first the parameter_file, thereafter the command line.
// * Parser::ParseOptiononCmdLineinFile(var1_enum,var1)
//     if the option -i/--input[=]paramter_file is on the command line then
//     parse first the command line, thereafter the parameter_file
// * Parser::ParseHelp()
//     if the option -h/--help is parsed, print to standard output a message
//     with class_name information and a list of all the registered/inserted
//     options for that class in the predefined format :
//     option_name[,option_aliases]   option_type  option_comment
//     and return a true boolean
// * Parser::ParseVersion()
//     if the option -v/--version is parsed, print to standard output a
//     message containing information package, version, copyright for the class
// * Parser::ParseTemplate()
//     if the option --create-template is parsed, print to standard output a
//     message with class_name information and a list of all the
//     registered/inserted options for that class in a format to be used
//     later with the -i/--input containing information about variable and
//     aliases, type of the variable, comment/description and default value
}

The second way of using is from the main routine and is very similar to the
first way

int main(int nargs, char *args[])
{
  try {
		Parser parser(nargs, args);
		parser.RegisterProgram(args[0]);
		parser.RegisterPackage(package, version, copyright);

		Foo foo(nargs, args);

		// Insert options if necessary
		...

		// Parse defaults
		if (parser.ParseHelp()) {
			foo.ParseHelp();
			return EXIT_SUCCESS;
		}
		if (parser.ParseVersion()) {
			foo.ParseVersion();
			return EXIT_SUCCESS;
		}
		if (parser.ParseTemplate()) {
			foo.ParseTemplate();
			return EXIT_SUCCESS;
		}

		// Parse option for program if necessary
		...

		// Parse class option
		foo.ParseParameters();

		...

			return EXIT_SUCCESS;
		} catch(ParseException &x) {
			cerr << x.what() << endl;
			return EXIT_FAILURE;
		}
}

The try/catch is used to handle potential errors at parsing and uses a
class ParseException.

This is brief example to show how the class Parser can be used.
it can be used to handle more complex inherited classes.
If it can be of any interest, let me know and I will provide you with more
details.

Sincerely,
Patrick

======================================================================
				  Patrick Guio
		    Institute of Physics, University of Oslo
		      P.O. box 1048, Blindern, N-0316 Oslo
	       Tel : (+47) 22 84 40 60 - Fax : (+47) 22 85 56 71
			E-mail : patrick.guio@fys.uio.no
		  URL : http://folk.uio.no/~patricg