Basics

The ozc program has a command line option to tell it to output usage information. The easiest way to specify such an option is:

help

Furthermore, we want to support a popular single-character abbreviation for it:

help(char: &h)

We might even support several single-character abbreviations for convenience.

help(char: [&h &?])

We can now write any of --help, -h, or -? for this option. (We might also abbreviate the long form to one of --h, --he, or --hel, provided that this would still be unambiguous.) The returned option list would be [help#true].

Boolean Options

There is another option to tell ozc to be verbose about what it is doing. Say we specified it as follows:

verbose(char: &v)

This means that we can write --verbose or -v. In contrast, the following specification additionally allows for --noverbose:

verbose(char: &v type: bool)

Aliases

Some people prefer to write --noverbose as --quiet, so we introduce an alias for it:

quiet(char: &q alias: verbose#false)

This is an alias with associated value. In contrast, the following option (not supported by ozc, by the way) would be an alias without value:

gossipy(alias: verbose)

This would allow us to write --gossipy for --verbose and --nogossipy for --noverbose.

String Arguments

The following example illustrates another type of argument than boolean:

include(type: string)

Saying --include=x.oz for instance would tell ozc to load and compile this file before tackling its `real' job. Together with the following option, we get an example for when the order beween different arguments may matter:

'define'(char: &D type: atom)

Saying

--define=MYMACRO1 --include=x.oz --include=y.oz

for instance would mean that MYMACRO1 would be defined for both x.oz and y.oz, whereas in

--include=x.oz --define=MYMACRO1 --include=y.oz

it is only defined for y.oz.

List Arguments

In ozc, actually, a list of macro names is allowed for this option:

'define'(char: &D type: list(atom))

This also supports, e. g., -DMYMACRO1,YOURMACRO17 x.oz. This would return the option list ['define'#['MYMACRO1' 'YOURMACRO17'] "x.oz"].

Range Limitations

Sometimes one wants to limit the range of allowed values:

compress(char: &z type: int(min: 0 max: 9))

This would allow us to write -z9, but not -z17. For atom arguments, sometimes only a limited set of values is sensible:

mode(type: atom(help core outputcode
                feedtoemulator dump executable)

For these, ozc also provides the better known aliases such as:

dump(char: &c alias: mode#dump)