Getting Started #

Oakton originated in the now defunct FubuCore project in 2010 as a mechanism to allow our .Net development team of that time to build robust console line utilities with these attributes:

• Make it easy to embed and expose command help for user friendliness
• Be consistent with Unix/Linux command line idioms from arguments and optional names -- i.e., make the command line usage feel like Git's command line syntax
• Easily enable tools to expose multiple commands
• Completely separate the command line parsing from the actual functionality of the console application for easier testing of the command line tools and cleaner code
• Validate user input and helpfully tell them when it's invalid and what the correct usage should be

Your First Command #

To get started, simply create a new dotnet console application and add the Oakton nuget dependency. For your first command, let's start simple with a command that will simply print out a specified name with an optional color and title. The logical first step is to just create the input class for your command that will establish the arguments and an optional flag:

public class NameInput
{
    [Description("The name to be printed to the console output")]
    public string Name { get; set; }

    [Description("The color of the text. Default is black")]
    public ConsoleColor Color { get; set; } = ConsoleColor.Black;

    [Description("Optional title preceeding the name")]
    public string TitleFlag { get; set; }
}

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You'll note that I've added some [Oakton.Description] attributes strictly for the purpose of adding user help messages that we'll take a look at later. Now that we've got that out of the way, let's create our first command:

[Description("Print somebody's name")]
public class NameCommand : OaktonCommand<NameInput>
{
    public NameCommand()
    {
        // The usage pattern definition here is completely
        // optional
        Usage("Default Color").Arguments(x => x.Name);
        Usage("Print name with specified color").Arguments(x => x.Name, x => x.Color);
    }

    public override bool Execute(NameInput input)
    {
        var text = input.Name;
        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(input.TitleFlag))
        {
            text = input.TitleFlag + " " + text;
        }

        AnsiConsole.Write($"[{input.Color}]{text}[/]");

        // Just telling the OS that the command
        // finished up okay
        return true;
    }
}

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With that in place, let's wire it up to our applications Program.Main():

class Program
{
    static int Main(string[] args)
    {
        // As long as this doesn't blow up, we're good to go
        return CommandExecutor.ExecuteCommand<NameCommand>(args);
    }
}

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Now, from the command line, I'll just try dotnet run, which will give us this (slightly elided) output complaining that we're missing a required argument or two:

Invalid usage

name - Print somebody's name
├── Default Color
│   └── dotnet run -- name <name>
│       └── [-t, --title <title>]
└── Print name with specified color
    └── dotnet run -- name <name>
        Black|DarkBlue|DarkGreen|DarkCyan|DarkRed|DarkMagenta|DarkYellow|Gray|DarkGray|Blue|Green|Cyan|Red|Magenta|Yello
        w|White
        └── [-t, --title <title>]


                  Usage   Description
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
                   name   The name to be printed to the console output
                  color   The color of the text. Default is black
  [-t, --title <title>]   Optional title preceeding the name

Do note that we could get the same output without the angry "Invalid Usage" message by:

dotnet run -- help

or

dotnet run -- ?

Now, to actually run the command, try:

dotnet run -- "Alex Smith"

Which will simply print out Alex Smith to the console output. We had to wrap the text in quotations so that Oakton treated the full name with spaces as a single argument.

To print the name in blue, we can type dotnet run -- "Alex Smith" Blue. To add a title, we can use the signature dotnet run -- "Alex Smith" --title Mr or dotnet run -- "Alex Smith" --t Mr to get the output "Mr Alex Smith."

How it Works #

Oakton is attempting to take the tokenized values in the command line input and apply the values to the matching fields or properties on the input class objects before passing that object into the proper command's Execute() method. Oakton also validates that the signature and flag usage matches the known command syntax.

Multiple Commands in One Tool #

Now, let's move on to building a tool with multiple commands. Let's say that we're trying to partially recreate the git command line with the clean and checkout commands:

[Description("Switch branches or restore working tree files")]
public class CheckoutCommand : OaktonAsyncCommand<CheckoutInput>
{
    public override async Task<bool> Execute(CheckoutInput input)
    {
        await Task.CompletedTask;
        return true;
    }
}

[Description("Remove untracked files from the working tree")]
public class CleanCommand : OaktonCommand<CleanInput>
{
    public override bool Execute(CleanInput input)
    {
        return true;
    }
}

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In the Program.Main(), the setup is just a little bit different to go discover all the commands held in the application:

static int Main(string[] args)
{
    var executor = CommandExecutor.For(_ =>
    {
        // Find and apply all command classes discovered
        // in this assembly
        _.RegisterCommands(typeof(Program).GetTypeInfo().Assembly);
    });

    return executor.Execute(args);
}

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Now then, typing dotnet run without specifying a valid command will give you this:

The available commands are:

  Alias      Description
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  checkout   Switch branches or restore working tree files
  clean      Remove untracked files from the working tree

Typing dotnet run -- help or dotnet run -- ? would give you the same information.

Our fake clean command has this usage:

public class CleanInput
{
    [Description("Do it now!")]
    public bool ForceFlag { get; set; }
    
    [FlagAlias('d')]
    [Description("Remove untracked directories in addition to untracked files")]
    public bool RemoveUntrackedDirectoriesFlag { get; set; }
    
    [FlagAlias('x')]
    [Description("Remove only files ignored by Git")]
    public bool DoNoUseStandardIgnoreRulesFlag { get; set; }
}

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To see the specific usage of the clean command, try dotnet run -- help clean or dotnet run -- ? clean to get the usage:

clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree
└── Remove untracked files from the working tree
    └── dotnet run -- clean
        ├── [-f, --force]
        ├── [-d, --remove-untracked-directories]
        └── [-x, --do-no-use-standard-ignore-rules]


                                    Usage   Description
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
                            [-f, --force]   Do it now!
     [-d, --remove-untracked-directories]   Remove untracked directories in addition to untracked files
  [-x, --do-no-use-standard-ignore-rules]   Remove only files ignored by Git