Grouping of commands

[vectronic]

Hello,

I wanted to implement 'grouped' sub-commands such as this:

my_cli network start --interface=eth0
my_cli network disable
my_cli storage defrag --drive=/Volumes/home
my_cli storage format --device=/dev/0

I guess in a way they would be sub-sub-commands scoped to a 'parent' group sub-command...? Let me call them "member sub-commands" for now...

Ideally the "member sub-commands" should be grouped in the help output as well:

Usage: my_cli <group> <command>

Options:

  -h, --help                   Show this help.

Commands:

  network
    start <network interface>  Start a network interface.
    disable                    Disable networking.

  storage
    defrag <drive>             Defrag a drive.
    format <device>            Format a device.

Note that I wanted some way for a "member sub-command" to declare it's parent group, so that multiple individual "member sub-command" implementations could be grouped together e.g. If I wanted to add a new "member sub-command" such as ping to the example above I would implement a new command and declare it belonged to the network group.

In other words I do not want to/cannot implement the above example like this:

Commands:

  network <action> <network interface>      Start the interface or disable networking.
  storage <action> <target>                 Perform the action on the named disk or device.

I have read in the manual about "grouped options", but I don't think this would help at all.

Do you think this is possible with cliffy command? Or should I be looking to write something different using cliffy parse?

[c4spar]

Hi @vectronic,

cliffy supports nested sub-commands. You can implement your example like this:

const networkCommand = new Command()
  .description("Network wub-command.")
  .command("start <network-interface>", "Start a network interface.")
  .action(() => console.log("start network..."))
  .command("disable", "Disable networking.")
  .action(() => console.log("disable network..."));

const storageCommand = new Command()
  .description("Device sub-command.")
  .command("defrag <drive>", "Defrag a drive.")
  .action(() => console.log("defrag device..."))
  .command("format <device>", "Format a device.")
  .action(() => console.log("format device..."));

await new Command()
  .name("my_cli")
  .description("My cli.")
  .command("network", networkCommand)
  .command("storage", storageCommand)
  .parse(Deno.args);

And the help output of the different commands will look like this:

$ my_cli -h

  Usage: my_cli

  Description:

    My cli.

  Options:

    -h, --help  - Show this help.

  Commands:

    network  - Network wub-command.
    storage  - Device sub-command.

$ my_cli network -h

  Usage: my_cli network

  Description:

    Network wub-command.

  Options:

    -h, --help  - Show this help.

  Commands:

    start    <network-interface>  - Start a network interface.
    disable                       - Disable networking.

$ my_cli network start -h

  Usage: my_cli network start <network-interface>

  Description:

    Start a network interface.

  Options:

    -h, --help  - Show this help.

[vectronic]

Awesome - thank you very much. I think I was missing the bit about invoking help on the sub-commands. I will try it out!