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  -   Leif Kornstaedt <kornstae@ps.uni-sb.de>
  -
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  -   $Date: 2002/01/09 10:50:49 $ by $Author: kornstae $
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  <Chapter id="Chapter.Application">
    <Title/Application Support: <<Application>>/

    <Section id="section.application.module">
      <Title/The <<Application>> Module/
      <P>
	The <<Application>> module provides procedures for accessing the
	application's arguments, and for terminating applications.
	<List>
	  <Entry><<getCgiArgs>>
	    <Index class=tails/<<Application>><And><<getCgiArgs>>/
	  <Synopsis>
	    <<{Application.getCgiArgs ?+{Spec} ??{R}}>>
	  <Item>
	    acquires the arguments (both <Samp/GET/ and <Samp/POST/ methods
	    supported) and parses them according to ?_{Spec} as described in
	    <Ptr to="section.application.specifications">.  Returns the
	    options in&nbsp;?_{R}.

	  <Entry><<getCmdArgs>>
	    <Index class=tails/<<Application>><And><<getCmdArgs>>/
	  <Synopsis>
	    <<{Application.getCmdArgs ?+{Spec} ??{R}}>>
	  <Item>
	    acquires the arguments from the system property
	    <<'application.args'>> and parses them according to ?_{Spec}
	    as described in <Ptr to="section.application.specifications">.
	    Returns the options in&nbsp;?_{R}.

          <Entry><<getGuiArgs>>
	    <Index class=tails/<<Application>><And><<getGuiArgs>>/
          <Synopsis>
            <<{Application.getGuiArgs ?+{Spec} ??{R}}>>
          <Item>
            pops up a graphical interface with which the user can interactively
	    and comfortably edit the possible options described by ?_{Spec}
	    as described in <Ptr to="section.application.specifications">.
	    Returns the options in&nbsp;?_{R}.

          <Entry><<getArgs>>
	    <Index class=tails/<<Application>><And><<getArgs>>/
          <Synopsis>
            <<{Application.getArgs ?+{Spec} ??{R}}>>
          <Item>
            This is the recommended way of acquiring an application's
            arguments.  It invokes either <<Application.getCmdArgs>>
            or <<Application.getGuiArgs>> depending on the value
            of boolean property <<'application.gui'>>.  The latter is
            set to <<true>> when the <code proglang=sh/ozengine/ is
            invoked with option <code proglang=sh/--gui/.

	  <Entry><<processArgv>>
	    <Index class=tails/<<Application>><And><<processArgv>>/
	  <Synopsis>
	    <<{Application.processArgv ?+{Spec} ??{Ss}}>>
	  <Item>
	    performs argument parsing on the explicitly given list of
	    strings&nbsp;?_{Ss} according to specification ?_{Spec}.

	  <Entry><<processCgiString>>
	    <Index class=tails/<<Application>><And><<processCgiString>>/
	  <Synopsis>
	    <<{Application.processCgiString ?+{Spec} ??{S}}>>
	  <Item>
	    performs argument parsing on the explicitly given CGI query
	    string&nbsp;?_{S} according to specification ?_{Spec}.

	</List>
      <Para class=apropos><Title/Error Handling/
	If an error is encountered in the input, an error exception of the
	form <<ap(usage ?_{VS})>> is raised.  ?_{VS} describes the error
	in textual form.
      <P>
	<List>
	  <Entry><<exit>>
	    <Index class=tails/<<Application>><And><<exit>>/
	  <Synopsis>
	    <<{Application.exit ?+{I}}>>
	  <Item>
	    terminates the application with return status&nbsp;?_{I},
	    <<0>>&nbsp;indicating success and non-<<0>> indicating failure
	    of some kind.
	</List>

    <Section proglang=sh id="section.application.parsingconventions">
      <Title/Parsing Conventions/
      <P>
	This section describes how the arguments are acquired and what basic
	syntax is used for parsing them.
      <Subsection>
	<Title/Parsing of CGI Arguments/
	<P>
	  The CGI always passes arguments as name&slash;value pairs, where
	  the name is separated from the value by an equals sign and the
	  individual pairs are separated by ampersands.
	<P>
	  Boolean options ?{option} may be given as <<?{option}=yes>> or
	  <<?{option}=no>>.  Option names may be abbreviated, as long as
	  they remain unambiguous.
      <Subsection id="section.application.cmdparsing">
	<Title/Parsing of Command Lines/
	<P>
	  We distinguish between long option names and single character
	  options.  Long options are given as <<--?{option}>> or
	  <<--?{option}=?{value}>>; option names may be abbreviated as
	  long as they remain unambiguous.  Single-character options
	  are given as <<-?{x}>>, eventually followed by a value.
	  Several single-character options may be combined, &eg;,
	  <<-xy>> means <<-x -y>> (provided <<x>> does not take an
	  argument).  The argument to a single-character option may
	  be attached to the option character, &ie;, you can write
	  <<-?{x}?{value}>> or <<-?{x} ?{value}>>.
	<P>
	  Boolean options ?{option} may be given as <<--?{option}>> (meaning
	  <Code proglang=oz/true/) or <<--no?{option}>> (meaning <Code
	  proglang=oz/false/).  A single hyphen&nbsp;<<->> by itself is not
	  considered to be an option and thus is returned unchanged.  Parsing
	  stops at a double hyphen&nbsp;<<-->> appearing by itself; the double
	  hyphen itself does not appear in the output.
	<P>
	  In the case of an unrecognized long option name or single-character
	  option, or of an ambiguous long option prefix, an error is raised.

    <Section id="section.application.specifications">
      <Title/Option Specifications/
      <P>
	There are several ways to specify the way the arguments are parsed;
	we present them in order of increasing processing power.

      <Subsection>
	<Title/Plain/
	<Para class=apropos><Title/Syntax Specification/
	  The <<plain>> way of command line processing actually involves
	  no processing at all.  In CGI parsing, not even escaped characters
	  are translated.
	  <Grammar.Rule>?={spec}
	    <Grammar.Alt/<<plain>>/
	  </Grammar.Rule>
	<Para class=apropos><Title/Returned Result/
	  For CGI scripts, the result consists of a list of pairs of strings
	  (the name&slash;value pairs), whereas for command lines, it consists
	  of a list of strings.

      <Subsection>
	<Title/List/
	<Para class=apropos><Title/Syntax Specification/
	  The <<list>> way of processing command line arguments takes care
	  of determining what is a command line option, whether it takes a
	  value, how its value to be interpreted, &etc;
	  <Grammar.Rule>?={spec}
	    <Grammar.Alt add/<<list(>>[<<mode: ?={mode}>>] ?={option}
	      &ellipsis; ?={option})/
	  </Grammar.Rule>
	  Using the <<mode>> specification, the command line parser can either
	  be instructed to stop at the first non-option argument it encounters
	  (<<start>>) or it can look for options on the whole command line
	  (<<anywhere>>).  The latter is the default if no <<mode>> is given.
	  <Grammar.Rule>?={mode}
	    <Grammar.Alt/<<start>> | <<anywhere>>/
	  </Grammar.Rule>
	<P>
	  The integer fields of the option specification describe the
	  individual options.  An option must as least have an ?={option name}.
	  Furthermore, it may either be an alias for another option (if
	  <<alias>> is given) or it may be a <Q class=quasi/real/ option
	  actually visible to the application.  Aliases are never returned
	  to the application; they are always replaced by the option they
	  stand for.
	  <Grammar.Rule>?={option}
	    <Grammar.Alt/?={option name}<<(>>[<<char:>> ?={char or chars}]
	      [<<type: ?={type}>>]<<)>>/
	    <Grammar.Alt or/?={option name}<<(>>[<<char: ?={char or chars}>>]
	      <<alias: ?={alias})>>/
	  </Grammar.Rule>
	  <Grammar.Rule>?={option name}
	    <Grammar.Alt/?={atom}/
	  </Grammar.Rule>
	  As mentioned in <Ptr to="section.application.cmdparsing">, options
	  may be notated using single-character short forms.  With the <<char>>
	  specification one or several single-character short forms may be
	  assigned to an option.
	  <Grammar.Rule>?={char or chars}
	    <Grammar.Alt/?={char} | <<[>>?={char}<<]>>/
	  </Grammar.Rule>
	<P>
	  If no <<type>> is given, then the option does not take an argument.
	  (Note that <<true>> will be used as the associated value in this
	  case.)  Boolean options have a special status, as has already been
	  described in <Ptr to="section.application.parsingconventions">.
	  The remaining type specifications, however, require an additional
	  argument.  The <<list(?={primary type})>> annotation interprets its
	  argument as a comma-separated list of elements of a specific type.
	  <Grammar.Rule>?={type}
	    <Grammar.Alt/<<bool>>/
	    <Grammar.Alt/?={primary type}/
	    <Grammar.Alt/<<list(?={primary type})>>/
	  </Grammar.Rule>
	<P>
	  There are four supported basic types and a <Q class=quasi/generic/
	  type.  Integer and float arguments have to be given in Oz concrete
	  syntax (with the exception that the unary minus sign may be notated
	  as&nbsp;<<->>); minimum and maximum values may also be specified.
	  For arguments to be returned as atoms, a set of allowed values may
	  be specified.  Strings are returned as-is.
	<P>
	  The generic type simply consists of a binary procedure with the
	  signature <<{P ?+{S} ?_{X}}>> which may arbitrarily transform the
	  argument, given as a string.
	  <Grammar.Rule>?={primary type}
	    <Grammar.Alt/<<int(>>[<<min: ?={int}>>] [<<max: ?={int}>>]<<)>>/
	    <Grammar.Alt/<<float(>>[<<min: ?={float}>>]
	      [<<max: ?={float}>>]<<)>>/
	    <Grammar.Alt/<<atom(>>[?={atom} &ellipsis; ?={atom}]<<)>>/
	    <Grammar.Alt/<<string>>/
	    <Grammar.Alt/?={procedure}/
	  </Grammar.Rule>
	<P>
	  Two different forms of alias are supported.  Option name aliases
	  simply state that this option name is equivalent to some other
	  option name; the other option's argument description will be used
	  for parsing this option as well.  The second kind of alias states
	  that this option is equivalent to another option used with the
	  supplied value (or a combination of several options).  In the
	  latter case, the value will be transferred to the output without
	  any additional transformations.
	  <Grammar.Rule>?={alias}
	    <Grammar.Alt/?={option name}/
	    <Grammar.Alt/?={option name}<<#>>?={value}/
	    <Grammar.Alt/<<[>>?={option name}<<#>>?={value}<<]>>/
	  </Grammar.Rule>
	<Para class=apropos><Title/Returned Result/
	  The result of this processing step is a list of parsed options,
	  interspersed with non-parsed arguments, a so-called ?={option list}.
	  All option names in this list are the canonical (&ie;, not aliased
	  and unabbreviated) forms.  The list respects the order in which the
	  arguments were given.
	  <Grammar.Rule>?={option list}
	    <Grammar.Alt/<<[>>?={arg or option}<<]>>/
	  </Grammar.Rule>
	  <Grammar.Rule>?={arg or option}
	    <Grammar.Alt/?={option name}<<#>>?={value}/
	    <Grammar.Alt/?={string}/
	  </Grammar.Rule>

	<Subsection class=unnumbered id="section.application.list.examples">
	  <Title/List Examples/
	  <P>
	    The following will give some examples taken from the <File/ozc/
	    program, which is the Oz command-line compiler.
	  <Para class=apropos><Title/Basics/
	    The <File/ozc/ program has a command line option to tell it to
	    output usage information.  The easiest way to specify such an
	    option is:
	    <<<help>>>
	    Furthermore, we want to support a popular single-character
	    abbreviation for it:
	    <<<help(char: &amp;h)>>>
	    We might even support several single-character abbreviations for
	    convenience.
	    <<<help(char: [&amp;h &amp;?])>>>
	    We can now write any of <Samp/--help/, <Samp/-h/, or <Samp/-?/
	    for this option.  (We might also abbreviate the long form to
	    one of <Samp/--h/, <Samp/--he/, or <Samp/--hel/, provided that
	    this would still be unambiguous.)  The returned option list
	    would be <<[help#true]>>.
	  <Para class=apropos><Title/Boolean Options/
	    There is another option to tell <File/ozc/ to be verbose about
	    what it is doing.  Say we specified it as follows:
	    <<<verbose(char: &amp;v)>>>
	    This means that we can write <Samp/--verbose/ or <Samp/-v/.
	    In contrast, the following specification additionally allows for
	    <Samp/--noverbose/:
	    <<<verbose(char: &amp;v type: bool)>>>
	  <Para class=apropos><Title/Aliases/
	    Some people prefer to write <Samp/--noverbose/ as <Samp/--quiet/,
	    so we introduce an alias for it:
	    <<<quiet(char: &amp;q alias: verbose#false)>>>
	    This is an alias with associated value.  In contrast, the following
	    option (not supported by <File/ozc/, by the way) would be an alias
	    without value:
	    <<<gossipy(alias: verbose)>>>
	    This would allow us to write <Samp/--gossipy/ for <Samp/--verbose/
	    and <Samp/--nogossipy/ for <Samp/--noverbose/.
	  <Para class=apropos><Title/String Arguments/
	    The following example illustrates another type of argument than
	    boolean:
	    <<<include(type: string)>>>
	    Saying <Samp/--include=x.oz/ for instance would tell <File/ozc/
	    to load and compile this file before tackling its <Q class=quasi
	    /real/ job.  Together with the following option, we get an example
	    for when the order beween different arguments may matter:
	    <<<'define'(char: &amp;D type: atom)>>>
	    Saying
	    <Code display proglang=sh
	    /--define=MYMACRO1 --include=x.oz --include=y.oz/
	    for instance would mean that <<MYMACRO1>> would be defined for both
	    <File/x.oz/ and <File/y.oz/, whereas in
	    <Code display proglang=sh
	    /--include=x.oz --define=MYMACRO1 --include=y.oz/
	    it is only defined for <File/y.oz/.
	  <P>
	    By the way, this option has a single-character abbreviation
	    <Em/and/ an explicit argument (in contrast to the implicit boolean
	    arguments above):  We can thus write either <Samp/-D MYMACRO1/ or
	    <Samp/-DMYMACRO1/ instead of <Samp/--define=MYMACRO1/.
	  <Para class=apropos><Title/List Arguments/
	    In <File/ozc/, actually, a list of macro names is allowed for this
	    option:
	    <<<'define'(char: &amp;D type: list(atom))>>>
	    This also supports, &eg;, <Samp/-DMYMACRO1,YOURMACRO17 x.oz/.
	    This would return the option list
	    <<['define'#['MYMACRO1' 'YOURMACRO17'] "x.oz"]>>.
	  <Para class=apropos><Title/Range Limitations/
	    Sometimes one wants to limit the range of allowed values:
	    <<<compress(char: &amp;z type: int(min: 0 max: 9))>>>
	    This would allow us to write <Samp/-z9/, but not <Samp/-z17/.
	    For atom arguments, sometimes only a limited set of values is
	    sensible:
<<<mode(type: atom(help core outputcode
		feedtoemulator dump executable)>>>
	    For these, <File/ozc/ also provides the better known aliases
	    such as:
	    <<<dump(char: &amp;c alias: mode#dump)>>>

      <Subsection>
	<Title/Record/
	<Para class=apropos><Title/Syntax Specification/
	  The additional processing step involved in <<record>> kind
	  specifications is that additional contextual conditions may
	  be checked, and the result is returned in a different form.
	<P>
	  Basically, the <<record>> specification is a strict extension
	  of the <<list>> specification.
	  <Grammar.Rule>?={spec}
	    <Grammar.Alt add/<<record(>>[<<mode: ?={mode}>>] ?={option}
	      &ellipsis; ?={option})/
	  </Grammar.Rule>
	  The specifications for <Q class=quasi/real/ (&ie;, non-alias)
	  options take some more information into consideration, namely how
	  often the option may appear and how several occurrences combine
	  (?={occ}), and whether it is a required option (<<optional>>;
	  the default is <<true>>) or whether it takes a default value
	  (<<default>>), which it does not by default.  At most one of
	  <<default>> and <<optional>> may be given.
	  <Grammar.Rule>?={option}
	    <Grammar.Alt add/?={option name}<<(>>/
	    <Grammar.Alt space/<<   1: ?={occ}>>/
	    <Grammar.Alt space/<<   >>[<<char: ?={char or chars}>>]/
	    <Grammar.Alt space/<<   >>[<<type: ?={type}>>]/
	    <Grammar.Alt space
	      /<<   >>[<<default: ?={value}>> | <<optional: ?={bool}>>]<<)>>/
	  </Grammar.Rule>
	  An option may be allowed to occur at most once (<<single>>) or
	  any number of times.  In the latter case, the result may either
	  respect all occurrences (<<multiple>>), or it may ignore all but
	  the first (<<leftmost>>) or last (<<rightmost>>) occurrence.
	  When all occurrences are respected, a list of them (preserving
	  the order) is returned.
	  <Grammar.Rule>?={occ}
	    <Grammar.Alt/<<single>> | <<multiple>>
	      | <<leftmost>> | <<rightmost>> | <<accumulate(P)>>/
	  </Grammar.Rule>
          When <<accumulate(P)>> is specified, procedure <<P>> is called
          for each occurrence of the option.  It takes two arguments: the
          option (as an atom) and the parsed value.  This can be used to
          accumulate multiple occurrences of related options into one list.
          See, for example, options <<--include>> and <<--exclude>> of
          <ref.extern to="ozdoc:tools" key="chapter.linker"
		      /the Oz linker <<ozl>>/.
	<Para class=apropos><Title/Returned Result/
	  The result consists of an option record.  All options which had
	  an explicit ?={occ} given in their specification are moved from
	  the option list into this record, the feature being the option
	  name, the subtree the associated value.  Defaulted options that
	  have not been overridden by the argument list appear in this
	  record with their default value.  Only optional options may be
	  missing from this record, namely when they have not been specified
	  in the argument list.  Those options which did not have an explicit
	  ?={occ} given in their specification are found, interspersed with
	  non-parsed arguments, in an option list under feature&nbsp;<<1>>
	  of the option record.
	  <Grammar.Rule>?={option record}
	    <Grammar.Alt/<<optRec(1: ?={option list}>>/
	    <Grammar.Alt space
	      /<<       ?={option name}: ?={value}>> &ellipsis;/
	    <Grammar.Alt space/<<       ?={option name}: ?={value})>>/
	  </Grammar.Rule>
	<SubSection class=unnumbered id="section.application.record.examples">
	  <Title/Record Examples/
	  <P>
	    Naturally, all examples given for <<list>> are also valid for
	    <<record>>, but in order to make them appear in the resulting
	    option record, we have to specify some additional things.  This
	    section illustrates this.
	  <Para class=apropos><Title/Basics/
	    For example, with the <<mode>> as specified earlier, the argument
	    list <Samp/--mode=dump/ would result in the following option
	    record:
	    <<<optRec(1: [mode#dump])>>>
	    In order to make it appear, we add the keyword <<single>> to the
	    specification, stating at the same time that this option can be
	    given at most once:
<<<mode(single
     type: atom(help core outputcode
		feedtoemulator dump executable))>>>
	    Then the option record for <Samp/--mode=dump/ would look like this:
	    <<<optRec(1: nil mode: dump)>>>
	  <Para class=apropos><Title/Default or Required/
	    Since the <<mode>> gives the basic mode of operation for <File
	    /ozc/, we would be lost if was not given in the arguments, because
	    it would not appear in the option record.  To enforce its presence,
	    we can either supply a default:
	    <<<mode(single type: atom(&ellipsis;) default: feedtoemulator)>>>
	    or make it a required option:
	    <<<mode(single type: atom(&ellipsis;) optional: false)>>>
	  <Para class=apropos><Title/Multiple Occurrences/
	    The keyword <<single>> stated that an option may appear at most
	    once in the option record.  For some options, this in inadequate.
	    If we want an option to be allowed to occur multiply in the
	    argument list, we have to specify what this means.  For instance,
	    <<<verbose(rightmost char: &amp;v type: bool)>>>
	    means that all but the last occurrences of <<verbose>> are ignored.
	    By the way, in <File/ozc/, <<verbose>> actually has a non-boolean
	    default:
	    <<<verbose(rightmost char: &amp;v type: bool default: auto)>>>
	    This allows for three modes of operation:  The default is to only
	    output messages if they are <Q/interesting/.  When being <Samp
	    /--verbose/, also uninteresting messages are output, whereas
	    being <Samp/--quiet/, even the interesting messages are
	    suppressed.
	  <Para class=apropos><Title/Collecting in Lists/
	    It is also possible to state that one wished all occurrences
	    of the same option to be collected in a list.  This does not
	    occur in <File/ozc/, so we give a fictitious example here:
	    <<<cattle(multiple type: list(atom) default: nil)>>>
	    Giving this argument several times, say, <Samp
	    /--cattle=angus,belgianred/, <Samp/--cattle=charolais/, and
	    <Samp/--cattle=dexter,highland/ on one command line would
	    result in the following option record:
<<<optRec(1: nil
       cattle: [angus belgianred charolais dexter highland])>>>
  </Chapter>
