A light, featureful and explicit option parsing library for node.js.

Why another one? See below. tl;dr: The others I've tried are one of too loosey goosey (not explicit), too big/too many deps, or ill specified. YMMV.

Follow @trentmick for updates to node-dashdash.

Install

npm install dashdash

Usage

var dashdash = require('dashdash');

// Specify the options. Minimally `name` (or `names`) and `type`
// must be given for each.
var options = [
    {
        // `names` or a single `name`. First element is the `opts.KEY`.
        names: ['help', 'h'],
        // See "Option config" below for types.
        type: 'bool',
        help: 'Print this help and exit.'
    }
];

// Shortcut form. As called it infers `process.argv`. See below for
// the longer form to use methods like `.help()` on the Parser object.
var opts = dashdash.parse({options: options});

console.log("opts:", opts);
console.log("args:", opts._args);

Longer Example

A more realistic starter script "foo.js" is as follows. This also shows using parser.help() for formatted option help.

var dashdash = require('./lib/dashdash');

var options = [
    {
        name: 'version',
        type: 'bool',
        help: 'Print tool version and exit.'
    },
    {
        names: ['help', 'h'],
        type: 'bool',
        help: 'Print this help and exit.'
    },
    {
        names: ['verbose', 'v'],
        type: 'arrayOfBool',
        help: 'Verbose output. Use multiple times for more verbose.'
    },
    {
        names: ['file', 'f'],
        type: 'string',
        help: 'File to process',
        helpArg: 'FILE'
    }
];

var parser = dashdash.createParser({options: options});
try {
    var opts = parser.parse(process.argv);
} catch (e) {
    console.error('foo: error: %s', e.message);
    process.exit(1);
}

console.log("# opts:", opts);
console.log("# args:", opts._args);

// Use `parser.help()` for formatted options help.
if (opts.help) {
    var help = parser.help({includeEnv: true}).trimRight();
    console.log('usage: node foo.js [OPTIONS]\n'
                + 'options:\n'
                + help);
    process.exit(0);
}

// ...

Some example output from this script (foo.js):

$ node foo.js -h
# opts: { help: true,
  _order: [ { name: 'help', value: true, from: 'argv' } ],
  _args: [] }
# args: []
usage: node foo.js [OPTIONS]
options:
    --version             Print tool version and exit.
    -h, --help            Print this help and exit.
    -v, --verbose         Verbose output. Use multiple times for more verbose.
    -f FILE, --file=FILE  File to process

$ node foo.js -v
# opts: { verbose: [ true ],
  _order: [ { name: 'verbose', value: true, from: 'argv' } ],
  _args: [] }
# args: []

$ node foo.js --version arg1
# opts: { version: true,
  _order: [ { name: 'version', value: true, from: 'argv' } ],
  _args: [ 'arg1' ] }
# args: [ 'arg1' ]

$ node foo.js -f bar.txt
# opts: { file: 'bar.txt',
  _order: [ { name: 'file', value: 'bar.txt', from: 'argv' } ],
  _args: [] }
# args: []

$ node foo.js -vvv --file=blah
# opts: { verbose: [ true, true, true ],
  file: 'blah',
  _order:
   [ { name: 'verbose', value: true, from: 'argv' },
     { name: 'verbose', value: true, from: 'argv' },
     { name: 'verbose', value: true, from: 'argv' },
     { name: 'file', value: 'blah', from: 'argv' } ],
  _args: [] }
# args: []

Environment variable integration

If you want to allow environment variables to specify options to your tool, dashdash makes this easy. We can change the 'verbose' option in the example above to include an 'env' field:

    {
        names: ['verbose', 'v'],
        type: 'arrayOfBool',
        env: 'FOO_VERBOSE',         // <--- add this line
        help: 'Verbose output. Use multiple times for more verbose.'
    },

then the "FOO_VERBOSE" environment variable can be used to set this option:

$ FOO_VERBOSE=1 node foo.js
# opts: { verbose: [ true ],
  _order: [ { name: 'verbose', value: true, from: 'env' } ],
  _args: [] }
# args: []

Boolean options will interpret the empty string as unset, '0' as false and anything else as true.

$ FOO_VERBOSE= node examples/foo.js                 # not set
# opts: { _order: [], _args: [] }
# args: []

$ FOO_VERBOSE=0 node examples/foo.js                # '0' is false
# opts: { verbose: [ false ],
  _order: [ { key: 'verbose', value: false, from: 'env' } ],
  _args: [] }
# args: []

$ FOO_VERBOSE=1 node examples/foo.js                # true
# opts: { verbose: [ true ],
  _order: [ { key: 'verbose', value: true, from: 'env' } ],
  _args: [] }
# args: []

$ FOO_VERBOSE=boogabooga node examples/foo.js       # true
# opts: { verbose: [ true ],
  _order: [ { key: 'verbose', value: true, from: 'env' } ],
  _args: [] }
# args: []

Non-booleans can be used as well. Strings:

$ FOO_FILE=data.txt node examples/foo.js
# opts: { file: 'data.txt',
  _order: [ { key: 'file', value: 'data.txt', from: 'env' } ],
  _args: [] }
# args: []

Numbers:

$ FOO_TIMEOUT=5000 node examples/foo.js
# opts: { timeout: 5000,
  _order: [ { key: 'timeout', value: 5000, from: 'env' } ],
  _args: [] }
# args: []

$ FOO_TIMEOUT=blarg node examples/foo.js
foo: error: arg for "FOO_TIMEOUT" is not a positive integer: "blarg"

With the includeEnv: true config to parser.help() the environment variable can also be included in help output:

usage: node foo.js [OPTIONS]
options:
    --version             Print tool version and exit.
    -h, --help            Print this help and exit.
    -v, --verbose         Verbose output. Use multiple times for more verbose.
                          Environment: FOO_VERBOSE=1
    -f FILE, --file=FILE  File to process

Parser config

Parser construction (i.e. dashdash.createParser(CONFIG)) takes the following fields:

• options (Array of option specs). Required. See the Option specs section below.

• interspersed (Boolean). Option. Default is true. If true this allows interspersed arguments and options. I.e.:

    node ./tool.js -v arg1 arg2 -h   # '-h' is after interspersed args

  Set it to false to have '-h' not get parsed as an option in the above example.

Option specs

Example using all fields:

{
    names: ['file', 'f'],       // Required (or `name`).
    type: 'string',             // Required.
    env: 'MYTOOL_FILE',
    help: 'Config file to load before running "mytool"',
    helpArg: 'PATH',
    default: path.resolve(process.env.HOME, '.mytoolrc')
}

Each option spec in the options array must/can have the following fields:

• name (String) or names (Array). Required. These give the option name and aliases. The first name (if more than one given) is the key for the parsed opts object.

• type (String). Required. One of:

  • bool
  • string
  • number
  • integer
  • positiveInteger
  • arrayOfBool
  • arrayOfString
  • arrayOfNumber
  • arrayOfInteger
  • arrayOfPositiveInteger

  FWIW, these names attempt to match with asserts on assert-plus.

• env (String or Array of String). Optional. An environment variable name (or names) that can be used as a fallback for this option. For example, given a "foo.js" like this:

    var options = [{names: ['dry-run', 'n'], env: 'FOO_DRY_RUN'}];
    var opts = dashdash.parse({options: options});

  Both node foo.js --dry-run and FOO_DRY_RUN=1 node foo.js would result in opts.dry_run = true.

  An environment variable is only used as a fallback, i.e. it is ignored if the associated option is given in argv.

• help (String). Optional. Used for parser.help() output.

• helpArg (String). Optional. Used in help output as the placeholder for the option argument, e.g. the "PATH" in:

    ...
    -f PATH, --file=PATH    File to process
    ...

• default. Optional. A default value used for this option, if the option isn't specified in argv.

Help config

The parser.help(...) function is configurable as follows:

Options:
    -w WEAPON, --weapon=WEAPON  Weapon with which to crush. One of: |
                                sword, spear, maul                  |
    -h, --help                  Print this help and exit.           |
^^^^                            ^                                   |
    `-- indent                   `-- helpCol              maxCol ---'

• indent (Number or String). Default 4. Set to a number (for that many spaces) or a string for the literal indent.
• nameSort (String). Default is 'length'. By default the names are sorted to put the short opts first (i.e. '-h, --help' preferred to '--help, -h'). Set to 'none' to not do this sorting.
• maxCol (Number). Default 80. Note that reflow is just done on whitespace so a long token in the option help can overflow maxCol.
• helpCol (Number). If not set a reasonable value will be determined between minHelpCol and maxHelpCol.
• minHelpCol (Number). Default 20.
• maxHelpCol (Number). Default 40.
• includeEnv (Boolean). Default false. If the option has associated environment variables (via the env option spec attribute), then append mentioned of those envvars to the help string.

Why

Why another node.js option parsing lib?

• nopt really is just for "tools like npm". Implicit opts (e.g. '--no-foo' works for every '--foo'). Can't disable abbreviated opts. Can't do multiple usages of same opt, e.g. '-vvv' (I think). Can't do grouped short opts.

• optimist has surprise interpretation of options (at least to me). Implicit opts mean ambiguities and poor error handling for fat-fingering. process.exit calls makes it hard to use as a libary.

• optparse Incomplete docs. Is this an attempted clone of Python's optparse. Not clear. Some divergence. parser.on("name", ...) API is weird.

• argparse Dep on underscore. No thanks just for option processing. find lib | wc -l -> 26. Overkill. Argparse is a bit different anyway. Not sure I want that.

• posix-getopt No type validation. Though that isn't a killer. AFAIK can't have a long opt without a short alias. I.e. no getopt_long semantics. Also, no whizbang features like generated help output.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.txt.