Naming is hard. I found I was writing new code without the `s` so that
suggests the name was wrong. But we renamed `number_of_values` to
`num_args`, so should this be `ArgRange`?
TakesValue helps because it provides a way for a lot of settings to say
a value is needed without specifying how many. Multiple values didn't
have enough call sites to make this worthwhile.
This is a part of #2688
multiple_values is now just book keeping for the builder, instead people
should look to actions and `num_args`.
The meaning for it was a little weird anyways.
The only time it won't be initialized is before `_build`. This is possible because
of #4027
I wish I could just put the `expect` inside the call but I'm worried
about allowing people to build stuff on top of clap.
As we move people off takes_value/multiple_values, this will provide
something to check.
This was previously blocked on other issues related to flag handling
(#4023)
This will allow `num_args(0..=1).value_delimiter(',')` to work properly.
This hacks in support for `require_value_delimiter` until we can remove
it.
This no longer recognzes value terminators in delimited lists.
It looks like there is a bug with recognizing value terminators in
positionals arguments. We'll need to dig into that more.
In clap v3, `require_value_delimiter` activated an alternative parse
mode where
- `multiple_values` meant "multiple values within a single arg"
- `number_of_values` having no parse impact, only validation impact
- `value_names` being delimited values
For unbounded `number_of_values`, this is exactly what `value_delimiter`
provides. The only value is if someone wanted `value_name` to be
`<file1>,<file2>,...` which can be useful and we might look into adding
back in.
Alternatively, this could be used for cases like key-value pairs but
that has issues like not allowing the delimiter in the value which might
be ok in some cases but not others. We already instead document that
people should instead use `ValueParser` for this case.
In removing this, we remove points of confusion at how the different
multiple values and delimited value calls interact with each other. I
know I would set `require_value_delimiter(true).multiple_values(true)`
when it turns out all I needed was `value_delimiter(',')`.
This also reduces the API surface area which makes it easier to discover
what features we do provide.
While this isn't big, this is also yet another small step towards
reducing binary size and compile times.
This reduces ambiguity in how the different "multiple" parts of the API
interact and lowrs the amount of API surface area users have to dig
through to use clap.
For now, this is only a matter of cleaning up the public API. Cleaning
up the implementation is the next step.
