Getopt::Whatever - Collects whatever options you pass it!

Version 0.01

    use Getopt::Whatever;

    for my $key (keys %ARGV) {
        if(ref $ARGV{$key}) {
            print $key, ' -> ', join(', ', @{$ARGV{$key}}), "\n";
        }
        else {
            print $key, ' -> ', $ARGV{$key}, "\n";
        }
    }

    print "@ARGV\n";

Getopt::Whatever parses whatever command line options that it can find in @ARGV and places them into %ARGV. The parsing only supports long options (double-dashed), but might eventually also support short-form options. After parsing, anything that was not considered an option is left in @ARGV.

The best way to describe what this module does is probably just to give an illustration, so here goes... suppose you use Getopt::Whatever in your program, my_program. Here are some combinations of what you'll get.

As just a basic example:

  my_program --verbose --data_file=/tmp/data.out go now -bob

Produces:

    @ARGV = ('go', 'now', '-bob');

    %ARGV = (
        verbose => 1,
        data_file => '/tmp/data.out',
    );

What about double-keys:

  my_program --data_file=/tmp/data.out --data_file=/tmp/more_data.out

Produces:

    @ARGV = ();

    %ARGV = (
        data_file => [ '/tmp/data.out', '/tmp/more_data.out' ],
    );

The results are hopefully what most users would expect.

You might be asking why you would need this module. We'll, I've found it to be useful for creating programs that drive templates. The programs can accept a template file and then whatever arguments you give it to fill in the template. There are probably other uses, but this is enough for me.

* Options with no values are considered flags and given a value of one.

* Options with arguments are placed as a key-value pair into %ARGV.

* Duplicate key-value options cause the hash value to become an array of values.

* Key-value pairs take precidence over flags.

* Processing stops at a lone '--'.

* Everything not considered an option is left on @ARGV.

You can find a fairly detailed list of what you should expect from edge cases in t/argv_tests.t.

There aren't any subroutines exported because everything that this module does happens on import. About the only thing that you'll notice is that %ARGV will be populated if you were passed any arguments.

Josh McAdams, <joshua.mcadams at gmail.com>

Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-getopt-whatever at rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Getopt-Whatever. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

It is not recommended to use this alongside any other of the Getopt:: modules because you'll have multiple modules dinking around with @ARGV.

None that I know of.

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

    perldoc Getopt::Whatever

You can also look for information at:

* AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation

http://annocpan.org/dist/Getopt-Whatever

* CPAN Ratings

http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/Getopt-Whatever

* RT: CPAN's request tracker

http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Getopt-Whatever

* Search CPAN

http://search.cpan.org/dist/Getopt-Whatever

Getopt::Casual - the inspiration for Getopt::Whatever because it seemed like a good idea, but didn't do exactly what I wanted.

Getopt::Long - One of the standard Getopt:: modules.

Getopt::Std - Another of the standard Getopt:: modules.

Copyright 2007 Josh McAdams, all rights reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.