Package ''cmdline'' is a part of [Tcllib].
Documentation can be read online at http://tcllib.sourceforge.net/doc/cmdline.html , and
examples of cmdline usage appear in [ftpd], [htmlparse], and [pop3].

[Glenn Jackman] offers [http://groups.google.com/groups?th=89144039acd5554b#link5] and [http://groups.google.com/groups?th=84e714d1329a035#link5] as "examples of cmdline in action".  ''([AMG]: 404)''

The cmdline package can be used for both programs which accept arguments
via the argv list as well as procs which have specific needs for argument
processing.

----
12 Jun 2003: Here is an example of its use (http://groups.google.com/groups?th=89144039acd5554b):

    package require cmdline

    proc test {args} {
        set options {
            {first.arg  1 "1st arg"}
            {second.arg 2 "2nd arg"}
            {third.arg  3 "3rd arg"}
            {fourth.arg 4 "4th arg"}
        }
         
        # cmdline::getoptions will throw an error for unknown option
        array set params [::cmdline::getoptions args $options]

        # do other stuff...
        parray params
    }                
     
    test -fourth last -first one

----

Here's a portion of another example, this one by [Eric Varsanyi]:

 proc sc_dump {args} {
        set ::argv0 "sc_dump"
        array set arg [::cmdline::getoptions args {
                {v "Verbose"}
                {t "Only dump top 10 LRU"}
                {hit "Sort by hit count"}
                {top.arg end "Dump top N LRU"}
                {main "Dump main cache"}
                {unrunnable "Dump unrunnable cache"}
                {i "Case insensitive expression match"}
                {all "Search entire entry (otherwise SQL only)"}
        }]
        if {$arg(t)} {
                set arg(top) 10
        }

        # Pick cache groups to dump
        set clist {}
        if {$arg(main)} {
                lappend clist main
        }
        if {$arg(unrunnable)} {
                lappend clist unrunnable
        }
        if {[llength $clist] == 0} {
                set clist {main unrunnable}
        }
        ...











----

cmdline::getoptions args $optlist has a nasty side effect: it removes all of the elements from args.

So, if you want to do anything with the original args after calling getoptions, save args or do it before calling getoptions.

----
[Category Argument Processing] - [Category Package], a subset of [Tcllib].