DocOpt.jl is a port of docopt written in the Julia language.

docopt generates a command-line arguments parser from human-readable usage patterns.

You will find how attractive the idea of docopt is with the example below:

doc = """Naval Fate.

Usage:
  naval_fate.jl ship new <name>...
  naval_fate.jl ship <name> move <x> <y> [--speed=<kn>]
  naval_fate.jl ship shoot <x> <y>
  naval_fate.jl mine (set|remove) <x> <y> [--moored|--drifting]
  naval_fate.jl -h | --help
  naval_fate.jl --version

Options:
  -h --help     Show this screen.
  --version     Show version.
  --speed=<kn>  Speed in knots [default: 10].
  --moored      Moored (anchored) mine.
  --drifting    Drifting mine.

"""

using DocOpt  # import docopt function

args = docopt(doc, version=v"2.0.0")

The result is:

$ julia -qL examples/naval_fate.jl ship new FOO
julia> args
Dict{String,Any} with 15 entries:
  "remove"     => false
  "--help"     => false
  "<name>"     => String["FOO"]
  "--drifting" => false
  "mine"       => false
  "move"       => false
  "--version"  => false
  "--moored"   => false
  "<x>"        => nothing
  "ship"       => true
  "new"        => true
  "shoot"      => false
  "set"        => false
  "<y>"        => nothing
  "--speed"    => "10"

Julia v0.6 is now supported.

The DocOpt module exports just one function, docopt, which takes multiple arguments but all of them except the first one are optional.

docopt(doc::AbstractString, argv=ARGS; help=true, version=nothing, options_first=false, exit_on_error=true)

Arguments

• doc : Description of your command-line interface. (type: AbstractString)
• argv : Argument vector to be parsed. (type: String or Vector{String}, default: ARGS)
• help : Set to false to disable automatic help on -h or --help options. (type: Bool, default: true)
• version : If passed, the value will be printed if --version is in argv. (any type, but VersionNumber is recommended, e.g. v"1.0.2")
• options_first : Set to true to require options precedes positional arguments, i.e. to forbid options and positional arguments intermix. (type: Bool, default: false)
• exit_on_error : Set to true to print the usage and exit when parsing error happens. This option is for unit testing. (type: Bool, default: true)

doc argument is mandatory, argv argument is automatically set to command-line arguments, and help, version, options_first and exit_on_error are keyword arguments.

Return

• parsed arguments : An associative collection, where keys are names of command-line elements such as e.g. "--verbose" and "", and values are the parsed values of those elements. (type: Dict{String,Any})

See http://docopt.org/ for more details about the grammar of the usage pattern.