Splitting a large argc script across multiple files

[mattwynne]

Hello, we love argc and have used it to create some monstrous scripts!

I am curious if it's possible to break apart a large script such that all the sub-commands under a given command are off in a separate file.

e.g.

instead of

bin/dev

with:

release::publish() {
#  ...
# etc.

I would have

bin/dev
bin/dev-release

and the main bin/dev script would do some magic to delegate any dev release * command to the functions/subcommands in dev-release.

I've tried fiddling with different combinations of eval "$(argc --argc-eval ..) and source but I can't quite get both working sub-commands and working --help.

Is this possible in theory, or am I fighting some implicit constraint? If it is possible, could you share a pattern/recipe?

[CGamesPlay]

This is similar to #374. The best I was able to come up with is to refer people to argc release -- --help to see the subcommand help, but it was possible to get shell completion working across file boundaries. However (from that thread):

argc doesn't encourage splitting files, but it does encourage setting up subcommands using the parent::child form. No new @meta will be added for the sake of subfile completion.

Personally I think this is a weakness of argc and would love to see something to fix that. My pet idea is a meta tag on the ./source commands like # @include which would signal that the literal path name following the next command should be parsed as part of the same Argcfile.

[mattwynne]

Well it's good to know I'm coming up against something structural rather than just my own ignorance :smiling

I guess all we can do right now to keep this manageable is have those parent::child subcommands delegate to another script.

I like the idea of an @include affordance.