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High-level option handling with GetOpt

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Revision as of 05:18, 8 June 2006


1 High-level technique for program options handling

1.1 Introduction

I've used Haskell to create various command-line utitities for unix-like systems. In the process I developed a simple yet powerful and flexible technique for processing program options.

Sven Panne's GetOpt module does a fine job at parsing command line options. It has a simple, easy to use interface, handles short and long options, abbreviated options and most needed option argument modes (no / optional / required argument). It can even produce a nice usage info from option descriptions.

(Documentation and example code using this module can be found at

However, I checked over half a dozen serious programs written in Haskell and saw that in most of them the code responsible for option handling is quite ugly, repetitious and error prone (of course there were exceptions, see below). Saying 'option handling' I don't mean the work of analyzing the command line, but rather how supplied options influence program's behaviour, how error situations are handled, etc.

(The exception is Wolfgang Thaller's VOP program. Wolfgang used a nice, but a little lengthy technique there. There are probably other ,,exceptional programs out there).

I think there are two major reasons of the current situation. The first reason is that option handling is rarely of primary concern to the programmer. Often there are not that much options to handle in the beginning and it seems that the simplest solution will do. Alas, if the program is evolving and its users ask for new functionality, new options appear, and the initial design starts to be an obstacle.

The other reason is lack of good examples. The example delivered with GetOpt shows how to use the library, but it doesn't show that there are other, better ways to use it. I don't propose to introduce more advanced techniques to this example, because it would make it rather heavy. But it would be nice if there would be a pointer for interested users.

1.2 About typical use of GetOpt

In a typical use of GetOpt module (like in the example) there is a definition of a sum datatype with data constructors corresponding to individual command-line options. Options with no arguments are represented by nullary constructors, and options that must or can have arguments - by unary constructors. For example, below is a slightly modified example from GetOpt's documentation:

  data Flag = Verbose               -- this option has no arguments
            | Version               -- no arguments
            | Input (Maybe String)  -- optional argument
            | Output String         -- mandatory argument
            | LibDir String         -- mandatory argument

GetOpt uses 'ArgDescr a' datatype to specify argument modes of options:

  data ArgDescr a = NoArg                   a
                  | ReqArg (String ->       a) String
                  | OptArg (Maybe String -> a) String

Because every constructor of Flag datatype has one of types Flag, (String -> Flag) or (Maybe String -> Flag), they can be given verbatim as first arguments to appropriate constructors of 'ArgDescr Flag' datatype.

Used in this way, getOpt parses a list of strings to a list of Flag values. It also separates options from non option arguments, signals unrecoginized, ambiguous or improperly used options.

But after all, it is not that big step. There is still much processing of this Flag list to do. One has to check if specific options are there in the list, some options have to be combined, etc, etc.

1.3 Advertised technique

( Because I wanted it to be a fully functional Literate Haskell program, here

 come the required imports )
module Main (main) where
import System.Console.GetOpt
import System
import Control.Monad
import IO
import List
import Char

Let's look at program options not from the command-line side, but rather from program(mer)'s side. How to encode them? What would be the best way to present them to the programmer. How should they influence program's behaviour?

'Verbose' could be an easily accessible Bool value, False by default. 'Version', if supplied, could just print the program's version and exit. 'Input' could just yield a String, either from stdin or from a specified file. 'Output' could just take a String and do something with it.

We need some kind of a fixed-size polytypic dictionary of option values - a perfect application for Haskell's records.

data Options = Options  { optVerbose    :: Bool
                        , optInput      :: IO String
                        , optOutput     :: String -> IO ()

Note that I didn't place optVersion in the record. We will handle this option differently.

There is one special combination of options, the start (or default) options:

startOptions :: Options
startOptions = Options  { optVerbose    = False
                        , optInput      = getContents
                        , optOutput     = putStr

But in the end we would like to get the record reflecting the options given to the program. We do this by threading the Options record through functions processing single options. Each such function can change this record. Why not just put such functions in ArgDescr and OptDescr datatypes? Here we benefit from first-class citizenship of functions.

I won't use a pure function with type (Options -> Options), but rather an effectful function in the IO Monad, because I want to easily perform side effects during option parsing (here only in 'verbose' and 'help' options, but I could also check validity of input and output files during option processing). You may prefer to use a pure function, a State+Error monad, a State+IO monad, or something different...

options :: [ OptDescr (Options -> IO Options) ]
options =
    [ Option "i" ["input"]
            (\arg opt -> return opt { optInput = readFile arg })
        "Input file"
    , Option "o" ["output"]
            (\arg opt -> return opt { optOutput = writeFile arg })
        "Output file"
    , Option "s" ["string"]
            (\arg opt -> return opt { optInput = return arg })
        "Input string"
    , Option "V" ["version"]
            (\_ -> do
                hPutStrLn stderr "Version 0.01"
                exitWith ExitSuccess))
        "Print version"
    , Option "h" ["help"]
            (\_ -> do
    	    prg <- getProgName
                hPutStrLn stderr (usageInfo prg options)
                exitWith ExitSuccess))
        "Show help"

Now we combine all this pieces:

main = do
    args <- getArgs
    -- Parse options, getting a list of option actions
    let (actions, nonOptions, errors) = getOpt RequireOrder options args
    -- Here we thread startOptions through all supplied option actions
    opts <- foldl (>>=) (return startOptions) actions
    let Options { optVerbose = verbose
                , optInput = input
                , optOutput = output   } = opts
    when verbose (hPutStrLn stderr "Hello!")
    input >>= output

Voila! As you can see most of work is done in option descriptions.