From: bwv549 <jtprince@...>
Date: 2007-06-08T02:10:14+09:00
Subject: DRY Documentation between method and OptionParser


I suspect that lots of folks have run into this very problem:

I have a method.  It has lots of options.  I need a command line
program that will give users command line access to run the method.  I
can use OptionParser to parse the command line options into a hash and
give this hash to my method, like this:

# The method:
def my_method(arg1, arg2, *opts)
   ...
end

# The command line interface:
opts = {}
parser = OptionParser.new do |op|
  op.banner = "usage: progname.rb arg1 arg2 [OPTIONS]"
  op.on("-f", "--first", Float, "this is the first option") {|v|
opts[:first] = v }
  op.on("-s", "--second", Array, "second option is an array") {|v|
opts[:second] = v }
end
parser.parse!
my_method(ARGV, opts)

I'm trying to figure out the DRY way to document these options, since
they will all be identical.  OptionParser documentation is in the code
and that's great, but how do I embed documentation in the method that
also can end up in OptionParser documentation.  Any ideas?  (This
situation comes up frequently in my work, or I wouldn't ask)

I've read through this post and it looks helpful (albeit fairly old
[will it still work]):
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/browse_thread/thread/b9a6985c1695531f/6ca8309210b85d72?lnk=gst&q=dry+documentation&rnum=1#6ca8309210b85d72
but I'm not sure how I would apply it to the above situation!


Many Thanks :)