Getopt modules 15: MooX::Options

About this mini-article series. Each day for 24 days, I will be reviewing a module that parses command-line options (such module is usually under the Getopt::* namespace). First article is here. Previous article.

MooX::Options (written by celogeek in 2011 and still being actively maintained) is roughly equivalent to MooseX::Getopt (or more correctly to MooseX::Getopt::Strict).

Here are the users of the module on CPAN (34, not as many as MooseX::Getopt at 94, but MooseX::Getopt has a 4 year lead):

% lcpan rdeps MooX::Options

+———+———-+————————————-+———–+————–+————-+

| phase   | rel      | dist                                | author    | dist_version | req_version |

+———+———-+————————————-+———–+————–+————-+

| runtime | requires | Acme-CatFS                          | PACMAN    | 0.002        | 0           |

| runtime | requires | App-Antigen                         | TBSLIVER  | 0.001        | 0           |

| runtime | requires | App-DuckPAN                         | DDG       | 1013         | 0           |

| runtime | requires | App-Duppy                           | BHSERROR  | 0.05         | 0           |

| runtime | requires | App-KeePass2                        | CELOGEEK  | 0.04         | 0           |

| runtime | requires | App-Lingua-BO-Wylie-Transliteration | DBR       | 0.1.0        | 0           |

| runtime | requires | App-Math-Tutor                      | REHSACK   | 0.005        | 4.000       |

| runtime | requires | App-OS-Detect-MachineCores          | DBR       | 1.2.3        | 0           |

| runtime | requires | App-PAUSE-CheckPerms                | NEILB     | 0.05         | 0           |

| runtime | requires | App-Procapult                       | MSTROUT   | 0.009001     | 4           |

| runtime | requires | App-SFDC-Command-ExecuteAnonymous   | ABRETT    | 0.15         | 0           |

| runtime | requires | App-SFDC-Metadata                   | TMINNEY   | 0.21         | 0           |

| runtime | requires | App-Software-License                | ETHER     | 0.11         | 0           |

| runtime | requires | App-assh                            | DBR       | 1.1.2        | 0           |

| runtime | requires | App-codefork                        | GETTY     | 0.001        | 0           |

| runtime | requires | App-jt                              | GUGOD     | 0.43         | 0           |

| runtime | requires | BioX-Map                            | PEKINGSAM | 0.0.12       | 0           |

| runtime | requires | ExtJS-Generator-DBIC                | ABRAXXA   | 0.003        | 4.022       |

| runtime | requires | ExtUtils-BundleMaker                | REHSACK   | 0.006        | 4.000       |

| runtime | requires | GID                                 | GETTY     | 0.004        | 3.73        |

| runtime | requires | Games-Cellulo                       | SKAUFMAN  | 0.22         | 0           |

| runtime | requires | GitHub-MergeVelocity                | OALDERS   | 0.000007     | 0           |

| runtime | requires | Jedi                                | CELOGEEK  | 1.008        | 4.012       |

| runtime | requires | Map-Tube-CLI                        | MANWAR    | 0.20         | 4.018       |

| runtime | requires | MarpaX-Languages-M4                 | JDDPAUSE  | 0.017        | 0           |

| runtime | requires | MooX-Cmd-ChainedOptions             | DJERIUS   | 0.03         | 0           |

| test    | suggests | MooX-ConfigFromFile                 | REHSACK   | 0.007        | 4.001       |

| runtime | requires | MooX-Ipc-Cmd                        | CAZADOR   | 1.2.1        | 0           |

| test    | suggests | MooX-Roles-Pluggable                | REHSACK   | 0.003        | 4.001       |

| runtime | requires | Movies-Organizer                    | CELOGEEK  | 1.3          | 0           |

| runtime | requires | OrePAN2                             | OALDERS   | 0.45         | 0           |

| runtime | requires | PAUSE-Permissions                   | NEILB     | 0.16         | 0           |

| runtime | requires | RTx-ToGitHub                        | DROLSKY   | 0.07         | 0           |

| runtime | requires | Task-BeLike-GETTY                   | GETTY     | 20150205.000 | 0           |

+———+———-+————————————-+———–+————–+————-+

Unlike in MooseX::Getopt, where the role creates command-line options automatically for your object attributes, "everything is explicit" as the MooX::Options' documentation says. Instead of the usual has keyword to declare attributes, you declare attributes that have options with the option keyword. The keyword is the same as has but accepts some extra parameters that are relevant for CLI apps:

package MyApp;
use Moo;
use MooX::Options;

option 'filename' => (
    is => 'ro',
    format => 's',
    required => 1,
    doc => 'the file to process',
);

1;

format, as you can guess, is a Getopt::Long option specification and will be passed to Getopt::Long::Descriptive as that is what MooX::Options uses under the hood to parse the options.

You can create your CLI similar to when you're using MooseX::Getopt:

use MyApp;
my $app = MyApp->new_with_options;
# perhaps do something with $app

For config file support, similar to in MooseX::Getopt, there's a MooX::ConfigFromFile (created by Jens Rehsack (REHSACK) in 2013) that adds the capability to read any Config::Any -supported config file. Although bearing the similar name as MooseX::ConfigFromFile, MooX::ConfigFromFile allows for easy customizing for file extensions/locations to search the config files, which I prefer. But overall I prefer the MooseX::Getopt approach which allows for more laziness.

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