---
name: "AppConfig::Std"
section: "3pm"
platform: "linux"
package: "libappconfig-std-perl"
version: "1.10-2"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/AppConfig::Std"
---

# AppConfig::Std(3pm)

subclass of AppConfig that provides standard options

## NAME

AppConfig::Std - subclass of AppConfig that provides standard options

## SYNOPSIS

```
    use AppConfig::Std;
    $config = AppConfig::Std->new();
    # all AppConfig methods supported
    $config->define('foo');            # define variable foo
    $config->set('foo', 25);           # setting a variable
    $val = $config->get('foo');        # getting variable
    $val = $config->foo();             # shorthand for getting
    $config->args(\@ARGV);             # parse command-line
    $config->file(".myconfigrc")       # read config file
```

## DESCRIPTION

**AppConfig::Std** is a Perl module that provides a set of standard configuration variables and command-line switches. It is implemented as a subclass of AppConfig; AppConfig provides a general mechanism for handling global configuration variables.

The features provided by AppConfig::Std are:

- •

  Standard command-line arguments: -help, -doc, -version, -verbose, and -debug. AppConfig::Std handles the -help, -doc, and -version switches for you, so you don't need to duplicate that code in all of your scripts. These are described below.

- •

  The ARGCOUNT default is set to 1. This means that by default all switches are expected to take a value. To change this, set the ARGCOUNT parameter when defining the variable:

  ```
      $config->define('verbose', { ARGCOUNT => 0 } );
  ```

Please read the copious documentation for AppConfig to find out what else you can do with this module.

## STANDARD OPTIONS

The module adds five standard configuration variables and command-line switches. You can define additional variables as you would with AppConfig.

### HELP

The **-help** switch will result in a short help message. This is generated using Pod::Usage, which displays the **OPTIONS** section of your pod. The script will exit with an exit value of 0.

### DOC

The **-doc** switch will result in the entire documentation being formatted to the screen. This is also done with Pod::Usage. The script will exit with an exit value of 0.

### VERSION

The **-version** switch will display the version of the invoking script. This assumes that you have defined `$VERSION` in your script with something like the following:

```
    use vars qw( $VERSION );
    $VERSION = sprintf("%d.%02d", q$Revision: 1.7 $ =~ /(\d+)\.(\d+)/);
```

The script will exit with an exit value of 0.

### DEBUG

The **-debug** switch just sets the **debug** variable. This is useful for displaying information in debug mode:

```
    $foobar->dump() if $config->debug;
```

### VERBOSE

The **-verbose** switch just sets the **verbose** variable. This is useful for displaying verbose information as a script runs:

```
    print STDERR "Running foobar\n" if $config->verbose;
```

## TODO

Please let me know if you have ideas for additional switches, or other modifications. Things currently being mulled:

- •

  Support brief switches, such as **-h** as well as **-help**. This could be a config option for the constructor.

- •

  Include a sample script called **mkscript**, which would create a template script along with Makefile.PL, MANIFEST, etc. Kinda of a h2xs for scripts.

## EXAMPLE

The following is the outline of a simple script that illustrates use of the AppConfig::Std module:

```
    #!/usr/bin/perl -w
    use strict;
    use AppConfig::Std;
    use vars qw( $VERSION );
    $VERSION = '1.0';
    my $config = AppConfig::Std->new();
    # parse command-line and handle std switches
    $config->args(\@ARGV);
    exit 0;
    __END__
    =head1 NAME
    standard pod format documentation
```

The pod documentation is expected to have the NAME, SYNOPSIS, DESCRIPTION, and OPTIONS sections. See the documentation for `"pod2man"` for more details.

## SEE ALSO

AppConfig - Andy Wardley's module for unifying command-line switches and cofiguration files into the notion of configuration variables. AppConfig::Std requires version 1.52+ of the module, which is available from CPAN.

Pod::Usage - Brad Appleton's module for extracting usage information out of a file's pod. This is used for the **-doc** and **-help** switches. Available from CPAN as part of the PodParser distribution.

perlpod \<https://metacpan.org/pod/distribution/perl/pod/perlpod.pod\> - documentation from the perl distribution that describes the pod format.

pod2man \<https://metacpan.org/pod/distribution/podlators/scripts/pod2man\> - particularly the NOTES section in the documentation which describes the sections you should include in your documentation. AppConfig::Std uses Pod::Usage, which assumes well-formed pod.

## REPOSITORY

\<https://github.com/neilb/AppConfig-Std\>

## AUTHOR

Neil Bowers \<neil@bowers.com\>

## COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2002-2013 Neil Bowers.

Copyright (c) 1998-2001 Canon Research Centre Europe. All rights reserved.

This script is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.