Commons CLI: Add multiple arguments to an option

I don’t find any direct way to build an option with multiple arguments. By using argName and numberOfArgs method of Option builder, we can set multiple arguments to an option.

Example

Option option2 = Option.builder("b").longOpt("block-size").argName("SIZE> <CAPACITY> <LINE").numberOfArgs(3).desc("use SIZE-byte blocks").hasArg(true).build();                

Above snippet generates following option.

-b,--block-size <SIZE> <CAPACITY> <LINE>>     use SIZE-byte blocks

Find complete working application below.

OptionDemo.java

import java.io.OutputStream;
import java.io.PrintWriter;

import org.apache.commons.cli.HelpFormatter;
import org.apache.commons.cli.Option;
import org.apache.commons.cli.Options;

public class OptionDemo {

 public static void printHelp(final Options options, final int width, final String cmdLineSyntax,
   final String header, final String footer, final int leftPad, final int descPad, final boolean autoUsage,
   final OutputStream out) {
  PrintWriter writer = new PrintWriter(out);
  final HelpFormatter helpFormatter = new HelpFormatter();
  helpFormatter.printHelp(writer, width, cmdLineSyntax, header, options, leftPad, descPad, footer, autoUsage);
  writer.flush();
 }

 public static void main(String args[]) {

  Option option1 = Option.builder("A").longOpt("almost-all").desc("do not list implied . and ..").hasArg(false).build();
  
  Option option2 = Option.builder("b").longOpt("block-size").argName("SIZE> <CAPACITY> <LINE").numberOfArgs(3).desc("use SIZE-byte blocks").hasArg(true).build();
  
  Option option3 = Option.builder("c").desc("with -lt: sort by, and show, ctime (time of last modification of file status information) with -l:show ctime and sort by name otherwise: sort by ctime").hasArg(false).build();
  
  
  Options options = new Options();
  options.addOption(option1).addOption(option2).addOption(option3);

  printHelp(options, 100, "ls", "", "", 5, 5, true, System.out);

 }
}

Output

usage: ls [-A] [-b <SIZE> <CAPACITY> <LINE>] [-c]
     -A,--almost-all                              do not list implied . and ..
     -b,--block-size <SIZE> <CAPACITY> <LINE>     use SIZE-byte blocks
     -c                                           with -lt: sort by, and show, ctime (time of last
                                                  modification of file status information) with
                                                  -l:show ctime and sort by name otherwise: sort by
                                                  ctime

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