A cross-platform header only C++14 library for interactive command line interfaces (Cisco style)

• Header only
• Cross-platform (linux and windows)
• Menus and submenus
• Remote sessions (telnet)
• History (navigation with arrow keys)
• Autocompletion (with TAB key)
• Async interface
• Colors

• From GitHub
• Using Vcpkg

The library depends on boost asio (to provide telnet server)

The library is header-only: it consists entirely of header files containing templates and inline functions, and require no separately-compiled library binaries or special treatment when linking.

Extract the archive wherever you want.

Now you must only remember to specify the cli and boost paths when compiling your source code.

If you fancy it, a Cmake script is provided. To install you can use:

mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
sudo make install

and, if you want to specify the installation path:

mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH=<cli_install_location>
make install

You can find some examples in the directory "examples". Each .cpp file corresponds to an executable. You can compile each example by including cli and boost header files and linking boost system (and pthread on linux).

To compile the examples using cmake, use:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DCLI_BuildExamples=ON
# or: cmake .. -DCLI_BuildExamples=ON -DBOOST_INCLUDEDIR=<boost_include_directory>
make all
# or: cmake --build .

In the same directory you can also find:

• a GNU make file (Makefile)
• a Windows nmake file (makefile.win)
• a Visual Studio solution

You can specify boost library path in the following ways:

make CXXFLAGS="-isystem <boost_include>" LDFLAGS="-L<boost_lib>"

example:

make CXXFLAGS="-isystem /opt/boost_1_66_0/install/x86/include" LDFLAGS="-L/opt/boost_1_66_0/install/x86/lib"

(if you want to use clang instead of gcc, you can set the variable CXX=clang++)

Set the environment variable BOOST. Then, from a visual studio console, use the command:

nmake /f makefile.win

Set the environment variable BOOST. Then, open the file cli/examples/examples.sln

The cli interpreter can manage correctly sentences using quote (') and double quote ("). Any character (spaces too) comprises between quotes or double quotes are considered as a single parameter of a command. The characters ' and " can be used inside a command parameter by escaping them with a backslash.

Some example:

cli> echo "this is a single parameter"
this is a single parameter
cli> echo 'this too is a single parameter'
this too is a single parameter
cli> echo "you can use 'single quotes' inside double quoted parameters"
you can use 'single quotes' inside double quoted parameters
cli> echo 'you can use "double quotes" inside single quoted parameters'
you can use "double quotes" inside single quoted parameters
cli> echo "you can escape \"quotes\" inside a parameter"               
you can escape "quotes" inside a parameter
cli> echo 'you can escape \'single quotes\' inside a parameter'
you can escape 'single quotes' inside a parameter
cli> echo "you can also show backslash \\ ... "                
you can also show backslash \ ... 

Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying file LICENSE.txt or copy at http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt)

Please report issues or questions here: http://github.com/daniele77/cli/issues

You can contact me via twitter at @DPallastrelli

Any feedback from users and stakeholders, even simple questions about how things work or why they were done a certain way, carries value and can be used to improve the library.

Even if you just have questions, asking them in issues provides valuable information that can be used to improve the library - do not hesitate, no question is insignificant or unimportant!