wildcard command matching

[Niels Bertram]

I am trying to parse a command line with a wildcard command after a set of known parameters in the following format:

  program [parameters] <command> [<subcommand> ...] [other-parameters]

I don't know this command at compile time but at runtime have a locator available that can give me a list of all commands available in the context.

I read the docs http://jcommander.org/#_more_complex_syntaxes_commands which sort of almost work.

The program would look like this:

  program -v 2 -l profile set name fred -r

It's sort of like a token scanner that parses the command args -v 2 and -l then tries to resolve the command arg profile and captures the remainder set name fred -r in an arg array for further processing.

I tried with a @Parameter without a name but that captures the command as well and swallows the [other-parameters].

Is that at all possible with JCommander?

This is what I tried  but obviously not working.

import static org.junit.Assert.*;
import org.junit.Test;

import java.util.List;

import com.beust.jcommander.JCommander;
import com.beust.jcommander.Parameter;

public class ParserTest {

  @Test
  public void commandCaptureTest() {

    Args args = new Args();

    JCommander.newBuilder()
      .addObject(args)
      .build()
      .parse("-v", "2", "-l", "profile", "set", "name", "fred", "-r");

    assertEquals(Integer.valueOf(2), args.verboseLevel);
    assertTrue(args.longList);
    assertEquals(4, args.extraArgs.size());

  }

  static class Args {

    @Parameter(names = "-v", description = "Print verbose messages")
    Integer verboseLevel = 0;

    @Parameter(names = "-l", description = "Show a long listing")
    boolean longList;

    @Parameter
    List<String> extraArgs;

  }

}