I'm glad to announce the version 0.1 of args-doc, the facility
dedicated to format usage messages for GNU Coding
Standards-compliant command line interfaces.
The facility aims to complement SRFI 37: a program argument
processor.
The extension is available from ``Eggs Unlimited'':
http://www.call-with-current-continuation.org/eggs/args-doc.html
http://www.call-with-current-continuation.org/eggs/args-doc.egg
(I would like to thank Felix again for taking the effort on
putting the plain text README on the wiki.)
* TODO
The issues still open are as follows.
* Documentation.
* Support for more Scheme implementations.
* The `args-doc:program-short-name' should be initialized with
the name of a program or a script being run, and not to `#f'.
* Convenience functions to be used as SRFI 37 option processors
for GNU Standards-compliant `--usage', `--help' and
`--version' options. A function to return ready to use
`args-doc-section' with the aforementioned options.
* Data structure. Should `args-doc-section' return a value of a
separate type? The same question for the section's entry.
* Future work.
The issues above are to be resolved.
I'll try to support several Scheme implementations. The next
one will probably be Scheme48, with which I'm quite familiar.
Should SLIB support SRFI 37, I'll ask for this facility to be
included in it as well.
On which other Scheme implementations it would be nice to have
args-doc?
Would this facility be ported to different Scheme
implementations, which format should I choose for the
documentation? Both Scheme48 Reference Manual and the SLIB
manual use Texinfo. On the other hand, it's a considerable
effort to make a .texi into a guidelines-conforming HTML for an
egg.
Should this facility prove to be useful, and if the time will
permit, I'll propose an SRFI for it.
One more part for a complete Argp replacement is the facility to
``combine'' several ``parsers'' into one. Once implemented, it
will allow library developers to ship ready to use option
parsers, which could be used by application developers to
provide a consistent command line interface with respect to the
abstraction implemented in a library.
It's a simple task, though not as simple as concatenating the
option lists.
Thus, the libraries needed to provide a facility comparable to
Argp are as follows:
* args-fold, to process the arguments;
* args-doc, to document the options;
* a library yet to be written, to ``merge'' several sets of
options into one set, to be used with both `args-fold' and
`args-doc'.
Any volunteers to work on the last one?
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