Toys-Core User Guide
Toys-Core is the command line framework underlying Toys. It implements most of the core functionality of Toys, including the tool DSL, argument parsing, loading Toys files, online help, subprocess control, and so forth. It can be used to create custom command line executables using the same facilities. You can generally write
This user's guide covers everything you need to know to build your own command line executables in Ruby using the Toys-Core framework.
This guide assumes you are already familiar with Toys itself, including how to define tools by writing Toys files, parsing arguments and flags, and how tools are executed. For background, please see the Toys User's Guide.
(This user's guide is still under construction.)
Conceptual overview
Toys-Core is a command line framework in the traditional sense. It is intended to be used to write custom command line executables in Ruby. It provides libraries to handle basic functions such as argumet parsing and online help, and you provide the actual behavior.
The entry point for Toys-Core is the cli object. Typically your executable script instantiates a CLI, configures it with the desired tool implementations, and runs it.
An executable defines its functionality using the Toys DSL which can be written in toys files or in blocks passed to the CLI. It uses the same DSL used by Toys itself, and supports tools, subtools, flags, arguments, help text, and all the other features of Toys.
An executable may customize its own facilities for writing tools by providing built-in mixins and built-in templates, and can implement default behavior across all tools by providing middleware.
Most executables will provide a set of static tools, but it is possible to support user-provided tools as Toys does. Executables can customize how tool definitions are searched and loaded from the file system.
Finally, an executable may customize many aspects of its behavior, such as the logging output, error handling, and even shell tab completion.