= Ruby CLI

Author:: Martin Velez
Copyright:: Copyright (c) 2011 Martin Velez
License:: Distributed under the same terms as Ruby

= Description 

"RubyCLI" is a Ruby library which factors out the code needed to create Ruby 
programswith a command line interface (CLI) which follows the Unix Philosophy 
design method outlined in http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch01s06.html.

Currently, RubyCLI is short and simple. It uses Ruby's core 
optparse[http://ruby-doc.org/stdlib/libdoc/optparse/rdoc/index.html] library.

= Design

What does a command line application library need to do?
1. Provide a user interface (UI)
   * Process options (use Ruby's Option Parser)
   * Process arguments
2. Pass options and arguments as parameters to other functions defined in libraries or other executables.

What does a command line application library need not do?
	1. A command line application does not need to validate options or arguments. Libraries or other executables should do this.

= Installation

gem install ruby_cli

= Alternative Tools

There are other tools out there which can be used to write command line 
applications. 

1. clamp[http://github.com/mdub/clamp]
   * I don't like to learn new DSLs
2. optparse[http://ruby-doc.org/stdlib/libdoc/optparse/rdoc/index.html]
   * This library uses this to parse options.
3. Thor[http://github.com/wycats/thor]
   * It does not try to follow the Unix Philosophy.
4. Clip[http://clip.rubyforge.org/]
   * OptionParser already exists.

= Usage

0. New File
1. Require the ruby_cli gem.
2. Create a Ruby class. 
3. Call it "App", for example.  
4. Include the RubyCLI module.
5. Define the command method.
	* This is where your program does the actual work.  
	* At this point you have options and arguments available.
	* Pass them as parameters to library functions or as options/arguments to other executables.
	* Be smart!  Have libraries and other executables do the heavy work.  
	* Be smart!  Fewer lines of code (LOC) is good.
6. Define command options and defaults (optional)
	* This is where you define a hash for your options and set the default values.
	* Remember, options by definition are optional.
7. Define command arguments and defaults (optional)

= Usage Example

This example demonstrates how to use RubyCLI to create a 
	#!/usr/bin/ruby

	require 'ruby_cli'

	class App
		include RubyCLI	

		def command
			puts "hello world"
		end

	end

	if __FILE__ == $0
		app = App.new(ARGV)
		app.run
	end

= Dependencies

* Ruby 1.8.7 or greater

= Acknowledgements

Todd Werth[http://blog.toddwerth.com/entries/5]
* I used his Ruby command line application skeleton code.  I borrowed 
some ideas from there.

= TODO

* ?

= Source Code

https://github.com/martinvelez/ruby_cli