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I am using Spring Shell 3.0.0 to implement a command line application. The application deals with several types of objects and has several commands for each type of object, for example:

  • list-foos
  • list-bars
  • describe-foo XYZ

To improve usability, I would like to change the syntax to

  • foo list
  • bar list
  • foo describe XYZ

I understand that commands can be grouped and am using this functionality, which improves the help text, but as far as I can tell doesn't do anything beyond that.

I could implement this as separate top level foo and bar commands that take the subcommand as a positional parameter, but am looking for a better way. For example, I'd like to be able to define each subcommand as its own method (e.g. using @ShellMethod) so it can have its own parameters, help text, availability, etc.

The documentation implies there is support for sub commands:

A command in a spring-shell structure is defined as an array of commands. This yields a structure
similar to the following example:
command1 sub1
command2 sub1 subsub1
command2 sub2 subsub1
command2 sub2 subsub2

But I haven't been able to figure out how to make this work. Curious if this is possible and if so how to set it up? Ideally, I'd like typing foo to show a list of subcommands, help foo to show help on those commands, etc.

anarchitect
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1 Answers1

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You can do it by defining the command in the methods annotation like this :

@Command(group = "Foo commands")
public class Foo {
    @Command(command = "foo list")
    public void list() {
        ...
    }

    @Command(command = "foo description")
    public void description() {
        ...
    }
}

It works with @Command but not tried with @ShellMethod (I think it will be the same).

Not really the "better" way to do this, a global prefix command on the class might be easier to maintain, but for now I don't know any other way to do it.

Benoît
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