Skip to main content
Deno 2 is finally here 🎉️
Learn more

deno_minimist

💾 Parses command line arguments.

Port & rewrite to deno & typescript of the node library minimist.


example

// parse.ts
import parseArgs from 'https://deno.land/x/deno_minimist@v1.0.2/mod.ts';

parseArgs(Deno.args);
$ deno run ./examples/parse.ts -a beep -b boop
{ _: [], a: 'beep', b: 'boop' }
$ deno run ./examples/parse.ts -x 3 -y 4 -n5 -abc --beep=boop foo bar baz
{ _: [ 'foo', 'bar', 'baz' ],
  x: 3,
  y: 4,
  n: 5,
  a: true,
  b: true,
  c: true,
  beep: 'boop' }

API

import parseArgs from 'https://deno.land/x/deno_minimist@v1.0.2/mod.ts';

parseArgs(Deno.args);

const argv = parseArgs(args, opts={})

Returns an argument object argv populated with the array arguments from args.

argv._ contains all the arguments that didn’t have an option associated with them.

Numeric-looking arguments will be returned as numbers unless opts.string or opts.boolean is set for that argument name.

Any arguments after '--' will not be parsed and will end up in argv._.

options can be:

  • opts.string - a string or array of strings argument names to always treat as strings

  • opts.boolean - a boolean, string or array of strings to always treat as booleans. if true will treat all double hyphenated arguments without equal signs as boolean (e.g. affects --foo, not -f or --foo=bar)

  • opts.alias - an object mapping string names to strings or arrays of string argument names to use as aliases

  • opts.default - an object mapping string argument names to default values

  • opts.stopEarly - when true, populate argv._ with everything after the first non-option

  • opts['--'] - when true, populate argv._ with everything before the -- and argv['--'] with everything after the --. Here’s an example:

import parseArgs from 'https://deno.land/x/deno_minimist@v1.0.2/mod.ts';

parseArgs('one two three -- four five --six'.split(' '), {'--': true });

Note that with opts['--'] set, parsing for arguments still stops after the --.

  • opts.unknown - a function which is invoked with a command line parameter not defined in the opts configuration object. If the function returns false, the unknown option is not added to argv.

Relevant changes compared to minimist

  • An explicit TypeError is raised if the input is falsy.

  • --constructor option is supported.

  • Added few tests.

  • Improved accuracy and ergonomics of typescript types.

  • The returned payload is an object created using Object.create(null), hence does not have instance methods like toString:

import parseArgs from 'https://deno.land/x/deno_minimist@v1.0.2/mod.ts';

parse(Deno.args).toString(); // BAD - `TypeError: parse(...).toString is not a function`
parse(Deno.args) + "";       // BAD - `TypeError: parse(...).toString is not a function`

Object.prototype.toString.call(parse(Deno.args)); // OK `[object Object]`

JSON.stringify(parse(['--foo'])); // OK `{"_":[],"foo":true}`

License

MIT