Verbs

Verbs are the name given to a set of initial arguments that conditionally parse a set of configuration options based on the given verb. Think git add and git commit. Each has a different set of options that's used in a different way. Each verb class is a valid configuration class, so verbs are basically a way to combine multiple sets of configurations, conditionally, into one. Imagine that in addition to ./git, there was also ./git-add and ./git-commit each with its own configuration classes. With clipr, you can reuse those individual classes in ./git as verbs.

By default, the parser can automatically create an instance of each verb type as long as it has a parameterless default constructor. For more complex verb types, the CliParser constructor accepts an implementation of the clipr.IOC.IVerbFactory interface and will delegate to that interface when it needs to create a verb. Your choice of IOC Container can also be hooked into this Interface with an adapter. Also provided is a clipr.IOC.SimpleVerbFactory implementation that allows you to define a factory for each verb type in a collection initializer. The type in the initializer is optional and, if missing, will be inferred from the factory's return type.

var factory = new SimpleVerbFactory
{
	{ () => new GitAdd(".") }
	{ typeof(GitCommit), () => new GitCommit() }
}

public class GitOptions
{
	[Verb("add")]
	public GitAdd Add { get; set; }

	[Verb]  // The lowercased property name is used when no name is provided
	public GitCommit Commit { get; set; }
}

Some notes on verbs:

• A configuration class cannot contain both positional parameters and verbs (although the verb itself may define its own positional parameters).
• Verbs may be nested arbitrarily deep, so long as you adhere to the above requirement (although it's not recommended that you nest too deeply).
• Multiple verb attributes may be registered for the same verb. These will act like aliases (svn co vs. svn checkout).
• PostParse methods