getopt-like behavior in Go

Question

How do I nicely parse a list of program parameters and automate handling \"--help\" and/or \"--version\" (such as \"program [-d value] [--abc] [FILE1]\") in Go?

Answer 1

Google has created a getopt package (import "github.com/pborman/getopt") which provides the more standard command line parsing (vs the 'flag' package).

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "os"
    "github.com/pborman/getopt"
)

func main() {
    optName := getopt.StringLong("name", 'n', "", "Your name")
    optHelp := getopt.BoolLong("help", 0, "Help")
    getopt.Parse()

    if *optHelp {
        getopt.Usage()
        os.Exit(0)
    }

    fmt.Println("Hello " + *optName + "!")
}

 

$ ./hello --help
Usage: hello [--help] [-n value] [parameters ...]
     --help        Help
 -n, --name=value  Your name

$ ./hello --name Bob
Hello Bob!