.. -*- mode: rst -*-

========

 Opster

========

Opster is a command line parser, intended to make writing command line

applications easy and painless. It uses built-in Python types (lists,

dictionaries, etc) to define options, which makes configuration clear and

concise. Additionally it contains possibility to handle subcommands (i.e.

``hg commit`` or ``svn update``).

Quick example

-------------

That's an example of an option definition::

  import sys

  from opster import command

  @command(usage='%name [-n] MESSAGE')

  def main(message,

           nonewline=('n', False, 'don\'t print a newline')):

      'Simple echo program'

      sys.stdout.write(message)

      if not nonewline:

          sys.stdout.write('\n')

  if __name__ == '__main__':

      main()

Running this program will print the help::

  echo.py [-n] MESSAGE

  Simple echo program

  options:

   -n --nonewline  don't print a newline

   -h --help       show help

I think this mostly describes what's going on, except that I'd like to mention

one interesting feature - if you are using long name for option, you can use

only partial name, for example ``./echo.py --nonew`` a is valid command

line. This is also true for subcommands: read about that and everything else

you'd like to know in `documentation`_.

.. _documentation: http://hg.piranha.org.ua/opster/docs/