cli/README.md

**cli is a toolkit for rapidly building command line apps - it includes:**

- Full featured opts/args parser
- Plugin support for adding common options and switches
- Helper methods for working with input/output and spawning child processes
- Output colored/styled messages, [progress bars](https://github.com/chriso/cli/blob/master/examples/progress.js) or [spinners](https://github.com/chriso/cli/blob/master/examples/spinner.js)
- Command [auto-completion](https://github.com/chriso/cli/blob/master/examples/command.js) and [glob support](https://github.com/chriso/cli/blob/master/examples/glob.js)

Install using `npm install cli` or just bundle [cli.js](https://github.com/chriso/cli/raw/master/cli.js) with your app.

## Example apps

### sort.js

```javascript
#!/usr/bin/env node
require('cli').withStdinLines(function(lines, newline) {
    this.output(lines.sort().join(newline));
});
```

Try it out

```bash
$ ./sort.js < input.txt
```

Let's add support for an `-n` switch to use a numeric sort, and a `-r` switch to reverse output - only 5 extra lines of code (!)

```javascript
var cli = require('cli'), options = cli.parse();

cli.withStdinLines(function(lines, newline) {
    lines.sort(!options.n ? null : function(a, b) {
        return parseInt(a) > parseInt(b);
    });
    if (options.r) lines.reverse();
    this.output(lines.join(newline));
});
```

### static.js

Let's create a static file server with daemon support to see the opts parser + plugins in use - note: this requires `npm install creationix daemon`

```javascript
var cli = require('cli').enable('daemon', 'status'); //Enable 2 plugins

cli.parse({
    log:   ['l', 'Enable logging'],
    port:  ['p', 'Listen on this port', 'number', 8080],
    serve: [false, 'Serve static files from PATH', 'path', './public']
});

cli.main(function(args, options) {
    var server, middleware = [];

    if (options.log) {
        this.debug('Enabling logging');
        middleware.push(require('creationix/log')());
    }

    this.debug('Serving files from ' + options.serve);
    middleware.push(require('creationix/static')('/', options.serve, 'index.html'));

    server = this.createServer(middleware).listen(options.port);

    this.ok('Listening on port ' + options.port);
});
```

To output usage information

```bash
$ ./static.js --help
```

To create a daemon that serves files from */tmp*, run

```bash
$ ./static.js -ld --serve=/tmp
```

For more examples, see [./examples](https://github.com/chriso/cli/tree/master/examples)

## Helper methods

cli has methods that collect stdin (newline is autodetected as \n or \r\n)

```javascript
cli.withStdin(callback);        //callback receives stdin as a string
cli.withStdinLines(callback);   //callback receives stdin split into an array of lines (lines, newline)
```

cli also has a lower level method for working with input line by line (see [./examples/cat.js](https://github.com/chriso/cli/blob/master/examples/cat.js) for an example). 

```javascript
cli.withInput(file, function (line, newline, eof) {
    if (!eof) {
        this.output(line + newline);
    }
});
```

*Note: `file` can be omitted if you want to work with stdin*

To output a progress bar, call

```javascript
cli.progress(progress); //Where 0 <= progress <= 1
```

To spawn a child process, use

```javascript
cli.exec(cmd, callback); //callback receives the output of the process (split into lines)
```

cli also comes bundled with kof's [node-natives](https://github.com/kof/node-natives) (access with cli.native) and creationix' [stack](https://github.com/creationix/stack) (access with cli.createServer)

## Plugins

Plugins are a way of adding common opts and can be enabled using 

```javascript
cli.enable(plugin1, [plugin2, ...]);  //To disable, use the equivalent disable() method
```

**help** - *enabled by default*

Adds `-h,--help` to output auto-generated usage information

**version**

Adds `-v,--version` to output version information for the app. cli will attempt to locate and parse a nearby *package.json*

To set your own app name and version, use `cli.setApp(app_name, version)`

**status**

Adds options to show/hide the stylized status messages that are output to the console when using one of these methods

```javascript
cli.debug(msg);  //Only shown when using --debug
cli.error(msg);
cli.fatal(msg);  //Exits the process after outputting msg
cli.info(msg);
cli.ok(msg);
```

`-k,--no-color` will omit ANSI color escapes from the output

**glob**  - *requires* `npm install glob`

Enables glob matching of arguments

**daemon**  - *requires* `npm install daemon`

Adds `-d,--daemon ARG` for daemonizing the process and controlling the resulting daemon

`ARG` can be either start (default), stop, restart, pid (outputs the daemon's pid if it's running), or log (output the daemon's stdout+stderr)

**timeout**

Adds `-t,--timeout N` to exit the process after N seconds with an error

**catchall**

Adds `-c,--catch` to catch and output uncaughtExceptions and resume execution

*Note: Plugins are automatically disabled if an option or switch of the same name is already defined*

## LICENSE

(MIT license)

Copyright (c) 2010 Chris O'Hara <cohara87@gmail.com>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
"Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE
LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION
OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION
WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.