Command Groups¶
Developers of modern applications tend to arange commands of their CLI in groups. Kickoff looks at the code composition and reflects it in the hierarchical design of CLI. It recursively traverses across the module of your choice to find functions and classes. Functions become commands. Classes are interpreted as command groups.
By default only those functions which have their body defined in given module can become commands. This prevents form exposing of utility functions that the script may import from other modules for internal use. Also functions and classes names of which start with underscore are ignored.
Despite of this fact, it is possible to create a design which is divided into multiple files. To accept external code in the top level module, dedicated option must be set explicitly. This topic will be covered in Distributed Design. For now, here is an example of what we have discussed: ex03_command_groups.
Following table explains the details on how Kickoff translates elements of Python AST into building blocks from click module.
| Python AST | Click |
|---|---|
| Function | Command |
| Static method | Command |
| Class method | Command |
| Function argument | Parameter or option |
| Class | Command group |
| Return value annotation | Command settings |
| Argument annotation | Parameter/option settings |
| Function docstring | Command description |
| Class docstring | Command group description |
| Module docstring | Application description |