I've written a few dozen tools over the years and have been happy with JCommander. Picocli looks to follow pretty much all the same conventions, but has a few nicer features on top. I'd love to see the entire project standardize on it.
On Tue, May 20, 2025 at 2:29 AM Štefan Miklošovič <smikloso...@apache.org> wrote: > Hey, > > I mapped what command line parser styles we use across the project while > dealing with some ticket (20448) and it is mixed like this, I am talking > about stuff we use in commons-cli for Gnu and Posix parsers: > > GnuParser > > StandaloneSplitter > BulkLoader (aka sstableloader) > HashPassword > GenerateTokens > AuditLogViewer > StandaloneVerifier > StandaloneSSTableUtil > StandaloneUpgrader > StandaloneScrubber > > PosixParser > > SSTablePartitions > SSTableMetadataViewer > SSTableExport > AbstractJMXClient which is not used anywhere, huh? > > For these we use manual parsing of arguments without any library > > SSTableRepairedAtSetter > SSTableOfflineRelevel > SSTableLevelResetter > SSTableExpiredBlockers > TransformClusterMetadataHelper > > airline / (will be picocli-ed soon) > > JMXTool > FullQueryLogTool > CompactionStress > > nodetool - will be picocli-ed > > Stress - totally custom stuff but cassandra-easy-stress just landed now > which uses "com.beust.jcommander" > > For what we have in tools, what should I base it on going forward? > > As a curiosity / interestingly enough, from the perspective of common-cli > implementation, both GnuParser as well as PosixParser are marked as > deprecated. What is not deprecated in commons-cli is "DefaultParser" which > can be configured to mimic either style (gnu / posix). > > What is the official policy we have around arguments parsing? What kind of > style should we default to for tools? Posix or Gnu? (not talking about > nodetool as that is a category in itself). > > It seems like GnuParser is more prevalent, so is that one the winner here? > > I understand that there is a ton of legacy and we can not just change the > styles easily for the code already there without a big bang. What I am > trying to do here is to just know what we will go with. I do not think that > mixing two styles arbitrarily is good. > > Regards >
