Issue with POSIX short options

[ustieber]

Hi,

We are evaluating to move to 'picocli' for a re-write of one command line applications. However, we have noticed an issue with POSIX short options we are heavily using.

Coming from 'getopt' following options have all the same value '2' ... '-v=2', '-v2' and '-v 2'.

With 'picocli', only '-v=2' and '-v2' produce the expected value '2'. '-v 2' however produces ' 2', which leads to a 'NumberFormatException' in the default integer converter.

Now, question is ... Is this a feature or a bug?

It is easy to fix by trimming the value string when getting it from the 'args' stack in 'CommandLine::applyValueToSingleValuedField'.

Kind regards

[remkop]

That would be a bug but I believe I have tests that show different behaviour.
Can you please provide a program that demonstrates the issue?
I am curious how the input is passed to picocli.

[ustieber]

If you execute the attached 'DemoOptionsHandlerTest', you get ...

Invalid value for option '--verbosity': ' 3' is not an int

picocli_demo.zip

[remkop]

Thank you! Note that DemoOptionsHandlerTest incorrectly tests this:

// currently: passing an array with one element
DemoOptionsHandler.parse(new String[] { "-v 3" }); 

This results in the -v option getting the value of the string " 3" (space followed by the character '3')

I believe your intention is to test this:

// should: pass an array with two elements
DemoOptionsHandler.parse(new String[] { "-v", "3" });

That would be closer to what happens when the user invokes your command on the command line like this:

demo -v 3

The shell will tokenize the input and the main method of your application will receive an array with 2 elements, "-v" and "3".
I hope this clarifies.

[ustieber]

Ah, yes, you are right. Good catch. Thx