1AppConfig::Std(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation AppConfig::Std(3)
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6 AppConfig::Std - subclass of AppConfig that provides standard options
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9 use AppConfig::Std;
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11 $config = AppConfig::Std->new();
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13 # all AppConfig methods supported
14 $config->define('foo'); # define variable foo
15 $config->set('foo', 25); # setting a variable
16 $val = $config->get('foo'); # getting variable
17 $val = $config->foo(); # shorthand for getting
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19 $config->args(\@ARGV); # parse command-line
20 $config->file(".myconfigrc") # read config file
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23 AppConfig::Std is a Perl module that provides a set of standard
24 configuration variables and command-line switches. It is implemented
25 as a subclass of AppConfig; AppConfig provides a general mechanism for
26 handling global configuration variables.
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28 The features provided by AppConfig::Std are:
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30 · Standard command-line arguments: -help, -doc, -version, -verbose,
31 and -debug. AppConfig::Std handles the -help, -doc, and -version
32 switches for you, so you don't need to duplicate that code in all
33 of your scripts. These are described below.
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35 · The ARGCOUNT default is set to 1. This means that by default all
36 switches are expected to take a value. To change this, set the
37 ARGCOUNT parameter when defining the variable:
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39 $config->define('verbose', { ARGCOUNT => 0 } );
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41 Please read the copious documentation for AppConfig to find out what
42 else you can do with this module.
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45 The module adds five standard configuration variables and command-line
46 switches. You can define additional variables as you would with
47 AppConfig.
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49 HELP
50 The -help switch will result in a short help message. This is
51 generated using Pod::Usage, which displays the OPTIONS section of your
52 pod. The script will exit with an exit value of 0.
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54 DOC
55 The -doc switch will result in the entire documentation being formatted
56 to the screen. This is also done with Pod::Usage. The script will
57 exit with an exit value of 0.
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59 VERSION
60 The -version switch will display the version of the invoking script.
61 This assumes that you have defined $VERSION in your script with
62 something like the following:
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64 use vars qw( $VERSION );
65 $VERSION = sprintf("%d.%02d", q$Revision: 1.7 $ =~ /(\d+)\.(\d+)/);
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67 The script will exit with an exit value of 0.
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69 DEBUG
70 The -debug switch just sets the debug variable. This is useful for
71 displaying information in debug mode:
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73 $foobar->dump() if $config->debug;
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75 VERBOSE
76 The -verbose switch just sets the verbose variable. This is useful for
77 displaying verbose information as a script runs:
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79 print STDERR "Running foobar\n" if $config->verbose;
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82 Please let me know if you have ideas for additional switches, or other
83 modifications. Things currently being mulled:
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85 · Support brief switches, such as -h as well as -help. This could be
86 a config option for the constructor.
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88 · Include a sample script called mkscript, which would create a
89 template script along with Makefile.PL, MANIFEST, etc. Kinda of a
90 h2xs for scripts.
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93 The following is the outline of a simple script that illustrates use of
94 the AppConfig::Std module:
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96 #!/usr/bin/perl -w
97 use strict;
98 use AppConfig::Std;
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100 use vars qw( $VERSION );
101 $VERSION = '1.0';
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103 my $config = AppConfig::Std->new();
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105 # parse command-line and handle std switches
106 $config->args(\@ARGV);
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108 exit 0;
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110 __END__
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112 =head1 NAME
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114 standard pod format documentation
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116 The pod documentation is expected to have the NAME, SYNOPSIS,
117 DESCRIPTION, and OPTIONS sections. See the documentation for "pod2man"
118 for more details.
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121 AppConfig
122 Andy Wardley's module for unifying command-line switches and
123 cofiguration files into the notion of configuration variables.
124 AppConfig::Std requires version 1.52+ of the module, which is
125 available from CPAN:
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127 http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/AppConfig/
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129 Pod::Usage
130 Brad Appleton's module for extracting usage information out of a
131 file's pod. This is used for the -doc and -help switches.
132 Available from CPAN as part of the PodParser distribution:
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134 http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Pod/
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136 perlpod
137 Documentation from the perl distribution that describes the pod
138 format.
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140 pod2man
141 Particularly the NOTES section in the documentation which describes
142 the sections you should include in your documentation.
143 AppConfig::Std uses Pod::Usage, which assumes well-formed pod.
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146 Neil Bowers <neil@bowers.com>
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149 Copyright (c) 2002 Neil Bowers.
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151 Copyright (c) 1998-2001 Canon Research Centre Europe. All rights
152 reserved.
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154 This script is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
155 under the same terms as Perl itself.
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159perl v5.12.0 2002-07-02 AppConfig::Std(3)