Command Line Processing

Despite the popularity of application servers and single page web apps, there are still times when a simple console application is the easiest - and best - way to solve some kinds of problems.

I’ve published an open-source project to GitHub to make it easier to write these console applications by providing a simple convention based approach for handling the command line parameters. This project is also available through nuget for simple use.

To use the Niche.CommandLineProcessor, write a simple driver class that abides by one of these conventions:

For a simple switch, write a method that takes no parameters and returns no value. Decorate it with [Description] to opt-in for handling as a switch. The name of the method is used to define a pair of flags for the command line.

[Description("Provide help on available parameters.")]
// This method defines -h and --help
public void Help() { ... }

For a parameter that takes a single value, write a method that takes one parameter and returns no value. Again, you ‘ must decorate it with [Description] to opt-in for handling as a parameter, and the name of the method is used to define a pair of flags.

[Description("Specify the output file to write.")]
// This method defiles -of and --output-file
public void OutputFile(string fileName) { ... }

For a parameter that can be specified multiple times, write a method that takes a sequence of values and returns no value. Again, you ‘ must decorate it with [Description] to opt-in for handling as a parameter, and the name of the method is used to define a pair of flags.

[Description("Specify a file to process.")]
// This method defiles -rf and --read-file
public void ReadFile(IEnumerable<string> fileName) { ... }

You can also specify the parameter as IList<string> or List<string>.

For more information, see the project page on GitHub.