[PATCH] cli: make the command line parser's errors more informative.

[Mark Walters]

Previously, the cli parser was a little erratic in what errors it
reported and would fail silently in many cases (for example, when no
argument was passed to an integer option). This was particularly
annoying as the user could not (easily) tell whether the command
failed or just there were no search results.

This patch tries to make the handling consistent and return a helpful
error message in all cases.
---

 command-line-arguments.c |   66 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------------
 1 files changed, 46 insertions(+), 20 deletions(-)

diff --git a/command-line-arguments.c b/command-line-arguments.c
index b0a0dab..ea56467 100644
--- a/command-line-arguments.c
+++ b/command-line-arguments.c
@@ -30,9 +30,9 @@ _process_keyword_arg (const notmuch_opt_desc_t *arg_desc, char next, const char
 	keywords++;
     }
     if (next != 0)
-	fprintf (stderr, "unknown keyword: %s\n", arg_str);
+	fprintf (stderr, "Unknown argument \"%s\" for option \"%s\".\n", arg_str, arg_desc->name);
     else
-	fprintf (stderr, "option %s needs a keyword\n", arg_desc->name);
+	fprintf (stderr, "Option \"%s\" needs a keyword argument.\n", arg_desc->name);
     return FALSE;
 }
 
@@ -51,9 +51,43 @@ _process_boolean_arg (const notmuch_opt_desc_t *arg_desc, char next, const char
 	*((notmuch_bool_t *)arg_desc->output_var) = TRUE;
 	return TRUE;
     }
+    fprintf (stderr, "Unknown argument \"%s\" for (boolean) option \"%s\".\n", arg_str, arg_desc->name);
     return FALSE;
 }
 
+static notmuch_bool_t
+_process_int_arg (const notmuch_opt_desc_t *arg_desc, char next, const char *arg_str) {
+
+    char *endptr;
+    if (next == 0 || arg_str[0] == 0) {
+	fprintf (stderr, "Option \"%s\" needs an integer argument.\n", arg_desc->name);
+	return FALSE;
+    }
+
+    *((int *)arg_desc->output_var) = strtol (arg_str, &endptr, 10);
+    if (*endptr == 0)
+	return TRUE;
+
+    fprintf (stderr, "Unable to parse argument \"%s\" for option \"%s\" as an integer.\n",
+	     arg_str, arg_desc->name);
+    return FALSE;
+}
+
+static notmuch_bool_t
+_process_string_arg (const notmuch_opt_desc_t *arg_desc, char next, const char *arg_str) {
+
+    if (next == 0) {
+	fprintf (stderr, "Option \"%s\" needs a string argument.\n", arg_desc->name);
+	return FALSE;
+    }
+    if (arg_str[0] == 0) {
+	fprintf (stderr, "String argument for option \"%s\" must be non-empty.\n", arg_desc->name);
+	return FALSE;
+    }
+    *((const char **)arg_desc->output_var) = arg_str;
+    return TRUE;
+}
+
 /*
    Search for the {pos_arg_index}th position argument, return FALSE if
    that does not exist.
@@ -99,20 +133,13 @@ parse_option (const char *arg,
 	    char next = arg[strlen (try->name)];
 	    const char *value= arg+strlen(try->name)+1;
 
-	    char *endptr;
-
-	    /* Everything but boolean arguments (switches) needs a
-	     * delimiter, and a non-zero length value. Boolean
-	     * arguments may take an optional =true or =false value.
-	     */
-	    if (next != '=' && next != ':' && next != 0) return FALSE;
-	    if (next == 0) {
-		if (try->opt_type != NOTMUCH_OPT_BOOLEAN &&
-		    try->opt_type != NOTMUCH_OPT_KEYWORD)
-		    return FALSE;
-	    } else {
-		if (value[0] == 0) return FALSE;
-	    }
+	    /* If this is not the end of the argument (i.e. the next
+	     * character is not a space or a delimiter) we stop
+	     * parsing for this option but allow the parsing to
+	     * continue to for other options. This should allow
+	     * options to be initial segments of other options. */
+	    if (next != '=' && next != ':' && next != 0)
+		goto DONE_THIS_OPTION;
 
 	    if (try->output_var == NULL)
 		INTERNAL_ERROR ("output pointer NULL for option %s", try->name);
@@ -125,12 +152,10 @@ parse_option (const char *arg,
 		return _process_boolean_arg (try, next, value);
 		break;
 	    case NOTMUCH_OPT_INT:
-		*((int *)try->output_var) = strtol (value, &endptr, 10);
-		return (*endptr == 0);
+		return _process_int_arg (try, next, value);
 		break;
 	    case NOTMUCH_OPT_STRING:
-		*((const char **)try->output_var) = value;
-		return TRUE;
+		return _process_string_arg (try, next, value);
 		break;
 	    case NOTMUCH_OPT_POSITION:
 	    case NOTMUCH_OPT_END:
@@ -139,6 +164,7 @@ parse_option (const char *arg,
 		/*UNREACHED*/
 	    }
 	}
+    DONE_THIS_OPTION:
 	try++;
     }
     fprintf (stderr, "Unrecognized option: --%s\n", arg);
-- 
1.7.9.1