climate/arguments/index.md

---

layout: default title: Arguments

permalink: /arguments/

Arguments

CLImate gives you the ability to easily define and parse arguments passed to your script.

Defining Arguments

When defining arguments, there are several options at your disposal:

• prefix The short prefix version of your argument without any dashes (-u)
• longPrefix The long prefix version of your argument without any dashes (--user)
• description A helpful explanation of the argument
• defaultValue A default value if a value is not passed
• required (bool) Whether or not the argument is required
• noValue (bool) If the argument does not require a value, it is simply passed, the value is automatically cast to a boolean
• castTo Cast the value of the argument to either a 'string', 'int', 'float', or 'bool'

These options are not required, you may choose any that are applicable to your definition.

Argument definitions are always passed as an associative array:

$climate->arguments->add([
    'user' => [
        'prefix'       => 'u',
        'longPrefix'   => 'user',
        'description'  => 'Username',
        'defaultValue' => 'me_myself_i',
    ],
    'password' => [
        'prefix'      => 'p',
        'longPrefix'  => 'password',
        'description' => 'Password',
        'required'    => true,
    ],
    'iterations' => [
        'prefix'      => 'i',
        'longPrefix'  => 'iterations',
        'description' => 'Number of iterations',
        'castTo'      => 'int',
    ],
    'verbose' => [
        'prefix'      => 'v',
        'longPrefix'  => 'verbose',
        'description' => 'Verbose output',
        'noValue'     => true,
    ],
    'help' => [
        'longPrefix'  => 'help',
        'description' => 'Prints a usage statement',
        'noValue'     => true,
    ],
    'path' => [
        'description' => 'The path to push',
    ],
]);

Parsing and Retrieving Values

Parsing the passed arguments and retrieving their values is very simple.

You must first parse the arguments:

$climate->arguments->parse();

Please note that if you have defined required arguments and they are not passed in, the parse method will throw an Exception

Then you may retrieve the value of any of your arguments by the key associated with their definition:

$climate->arguments->get('user');
$climate->arguments->get('password');

To simply check if an argument was was passed at all, you can use the defined method:

$climate->arguments->defined('verbose');

Adding a Description

Sometimes it's helpful to add a short description of the script to help a user out. Easy enough:

$climate->description('My CLI Script');

This comes in handy when printing...

Usage Statements

Printing a formatted usage statement is easy:

$climate->usage();

would result in:

My CLI Script

Usage: functional/args.php [--help] [-i iterations, --iterations iterations] [-p password, --password password] [-u user, --user user (default: me_myself_i)] [-v, --verbose] [path]

Required Arguments:
    -p password, --password password
        Password

Optional Arguments:
    --help
        Prints a usage statement
    -i iterations, --iterations iterations
        Number of iterations
    -u user, --user user (default: me_myself_i)
        Username
    -v, --verbose
        Verbose output