@hackage quickterm0.2.4.0

#Quickterm [Quick Haskell Terminal Interfaces]

##Examples

Some here: https://github.com/SamuelSchlesinger/Components

Others in examples folder

##Install/Documentation

To install:

cabal install quickterm

Documentation: https://hackage.haskell.org/package/quickterm-0.1.0.0/docs/Quickterm.html

##Development

Right now I'm taking finals, but in src/Mainable.hs, there is a class which really would make the production of these programs much easier. I plan to rework the system pretty thoroughly to allow for such functions, probably simply by adding another case to the Quickterm class and adding another pattern for each of the functions which take a Quickterm. Hopefully by doing it this way I won't break much. I also want to add some sort of cute error handling device, as right now there is a pretty common pattern in my TerminalAction implementations that simply prints the usage or some error message, and that could probably be relegated to some Error Monad, or something a little more expressive. That's a pretty big change, though, and it would break most of the code I've already written, so I'm probably going to add in the other bit first, push it once more, then make a new version and rework it and refactor it pretty intensively.

##First Look (Thoughts)

I often want to port certain functions I write to a command line interface. Assuming the existence of various functions which map from a set of command line arguments to an action of type IO (), this involes parsing arguments, options, and generating some usage information which should give you an idea of how to use the application if you go wrong.

I originally solved this with the idea of a Feature, which could be a Program with a list of features, or a Command, which contains a function [String] -> IO (). I did not include the concept of an option within this and I would like to handle this properly here. Both of the constructions of a Feature contained as well a name and a usage string, something which can recursively be generated and printed to the user upon failure to find a Command to run.

I want to step back from this and take a more principled view, seeing which useful Haskell typeclasses within which I can instantiate the various types I found useful in the last attempt. (Looking back, basically none were needed or would have added much as far as I can see. Living in the IO Monad is basically enough.)

##Second Look (First Interface)

importing the Quickterm module will give you the following definitions:

type Name = String -- I like this better than saying String everywhere, more meaning.

type Usage = String -- I like to describe things with characters, ideally with words.

type Args = [String] -- Nothing special here

type Options = Map Name [String] -- The options are a mapping from Name -> [String] -- It's rather important to note that an option of the form -X takes no argument, -- an option of the form --X can take one, ---X two, and so on.

type TerminalAction = Args -> Options -> IO () -- The sort of action we can perform

data Quickterm = Choice Name [Quickterm] Usage | Command Name TerminalAction Usage

usage :: Quickterm -> String -- Generates the usage string

quickrun :: [String] -> Quickterm -> IO () -- Runs the program on the raw arguments