Welcome to cliapp¶
cliapp is a Python framework for Unix-like command line programs,
which typically have the following characteristics:
- non-interactive
- the programs read input files named on the command line, or the standard input
- each line of input is processed individually
- output is to the standard output
- there are various options to modify how the program works
- certain options are common to all:
--help,--version
Programs like the above are often used as filters in a pipeline. The scaffolding to set up a command line parser, open each input file, read each line of input, etc, is the same in each program. Only the logic of what to do with each line differs.
cliapp is not restricted to line-based filters, but is a more
general framework. It provides ways for its users to override
most behavior. For example:
- you can treat command line arguments as URLs, or record identfiers in a database, or whatever you like
- you can read input files in whatever chunks you like, or not at all, rather than forcing a line-based paradigm
Despite all the flexibility, writing simple line-based filters remains very straightforward. The point is to get the framework to do all the usual things, and avoid repeating code across users of the framework.