Version 2.4.2: Build systems

This version improves support for alternative build systems, like Meson and Bazel. The single-include file now is in its own subdirectory. Several smaller fixes as well.

What's Changed

• Meson: fixes, cleanups, and modernizations #1024 & #1025
• Support building with Bazel #1033
• Restore non-arch dependent path for the pkgconfig file #1012
• Add get_subcommand_no_throw #1016
• Move single file to single-include folder #1030 & #1036
• Fixed app.set_failure_message(...) -> app.failure_message(...) #1018
• Add IWYU pragmas #1008
• Fix internal header include paths #1011
• Improved clarity in RequiredError #1029
• Added ability to use lexical_cast overloads constrained with enable_if #1021
• Bug fixes in latest release related to environmental variable parsing from option groups and unrecognized fields in a config file #1005

New Contributors

• @krico made their first contribution in #1018
• @dcbaker made their first contribution in #1024
• @gostefan made their first contribution in #1008
• @sifferman made their first contribution in #1029
• @calebzulawski made their first contribution in #1033

Full Changelog: v2.4.1...v2.4.2

Version 2.4.1

Version 2.4.1: Missing headers

A transitive include that might be present in some standard libraries is now
included directly. Also fixes a test on architectures that need libatomic
linked and fixes an inadvertent breaking change regarding unused defaults for
config files.

• Bugfix: Include cstdint #996
• Bugfix: Fix change in operation of config_ptr with unused default in the count
  method #1003
• Tests: Include libatomic if required for fuzzing test #1000

Full Changelog: v2.4.0...v2.4.1

Version 2.4.0

This version adds Unicode support, support for TOML standard including multiline strings, digit separators, string escape sequences,and dot notation. An initial round of a fuzzer was added to testing which has caught several bugs related to config file processing, and a few other edge cases not previously observed.

• Add Unicode support and bug fixes #804, #923, #876, #848, #832, #987
• Match TOML standard for string and numerical entries, multiline strings #968, #967,#964, #935
• Add validation for environmental variables #926
• Add an escape string transform #970
• Add A REVERSE multi-option policy to support multiple config files and other applications #918
• Add usage message replacement #768
• Allow using dot notation for subcommand arguments such as --sub1.field #789
• Bugfix: Fuzzing tests and fixes #930, #905, #874, #846
• Bugfix: Missing coverage tests #928
• Bugfix: CMake package and package config tests and fixes #916
• Bugfix: Support for Windows ARM compilation and tests #913, #914
• Bugfix: Environmental variable checks in non-triggered subcommands #904
• Bugfix: Environmental variables were not being correctly process by config pointer #891
• Bugfix: Undefined behavior in sum_string_vector #893
• Bugfix: Warnings and updates for CUDA 11 support #851
• Backend: Add tests for newer compilers (lost with Travis CI) #972
• Backend: Increase minimum CMake to 3.5 #898
• Backend: Remove integrated Conan support (provided now by Conan center) #853
• Tests: Support Catch2 Version 3 #896, #980

New Contributors

• @andreasxp made their first contribution in #804
• @Krzmbrzl made their first contribution in #844
• @ptheywood made their first contribution in #851
• @trokhymchuk made their first contribution in #893
• @peterh made their first contribution in #913
• @looopTools made their first contribution in #969

Full Changelog: v2.3.2...v2.4.0

Version 2.3.2: Minor maintenance

This version provides a few fixes collected over the last three months before adding features for 2.4.

• Bugfix: Consistently use ADL for lexical_cast, making it easier to extend for custom template types #820
• Bugfix: Tweak the parsing of files for flags with disable_flag_override #800]
• Bugfix: Handle out of bounds long long #807
• Bugfix: Spacing of make_description min option output #808
• Bugfix: Print last parsed subcommand's help message #822
• Bugfix: Avoid floating point warning in GCC 12 #803
• Bugfix: Fix a few gcc warnings #813
• Backend: Max CMake tested 3.22 -> 3.24 #823

New Contributors

• @DarkWingMcQuack made their first contribution in #803
• @SherlockInSpace made their first contribution in #808
• @captainurist made their first contribution in #820
• @VolkerChristian made their first contribution in #822

Full Changelog: v2.3.1...v2.3.2

Version 2.3.1: Missing function implementation

A function implementation was missing after the pre-compile move, missed due to the fact we lost 100% after losing coverage checking. We are working on filling out 100% coverage again to ensure this doesn't happen again!

• Bugfix: App::get_option_group implementation missing #793
• Bugfix: Fix spacing when setting an empty footer #796
• Bugfix: Address Klocwork static analysis checking issues #785

Version 2.3: Precompilation Support

This version adds a pre-compiled mode to CLI11, which allows you to precompile the library, saving time on incremental rebuilds, making CLI11 more competitive on compile time with classic compiled CLI libraries. The header-only mode is still default, and is not yet distributed via binaries.

• Add CLI11_PRECOMPILED as an option. #762
• Bugfix: Include <functional> in FormatterFwd #727
• Bugfix: Add missing Macros.hpp to Error.hpp #755
• Bugfix: Fix subcommand callback trigger #733
• Bugfix: Variable rename to avoid warning #734
• Bugfix: split_program_name single file name error #740
• Bugfix: Better support for min/max overrides on MSVC #741
• Bugfix: Support MSVC 2022 #748
• Bugfix: Support negated flag in config file #775
• Bugfix: Better errors for some confusing config file situations #781
• Backend: Restore coverage testing (lost with Travis CI) #747

New Contributors

• @shameekganguly made their first contribution in #727
• @PeteAudinate made their first contribution in #734
• @dherrera-fb made their first contribution in #762

Full Changelog: v2.2.0...v2.3.0

Version 2.2: Option and Configuration Flexibility

New features include support for output of an empty vector, a summing option policy that can be applied more broadly, and an option to validate optional arguments to discriminate from positional arguments. A new validator to check for files on a default path is included to allow one or more default paths for configuration files or other file arguments. A number of bug fixes and code cleanup for various build configurations. Clean up of some error outputs and extension of existing capability to new types or situations.

There is a possible minor breaking change in behavior of certain types which wrapped an integer, such as std::atomic<int> or std::optional<int> when used in a flag. The default behavior is now as a single argument value vs. summing all the arguments. The default summing behavior is now restricted to pure integral types, int64_t, int, uint32_t, etc. Use the new sum multi option policy to revert to the older behavior. The summing behavior on wrapper types was not originally intended.

• Add MultiOptionPolicy::Sum and refactor the add_flag to fix a bug when using std::optional<bool> as type. #709
• Add support for an empty vector result in TOML and as a default string. #660
• Add .validate_optional_arguments() to support discriminating positional arguments from vector option arguments. #668
• Add CLI::FileOnDefaultPath to check for files on a specified default path. #698
• Change default value display in help messages from =XXXX to [XXXXX] to make it clearer. #666
• Modify the Range Validator to support additional types and clean up the error output. #690
• Bugfix: The trigger on parse modifier did not work on positional arguments. #713
• Bugfix: The single header file generation was missing custom namespace generation. #707
• Bugfix: Clean up File Error handling in the argument processing. #678
• Bugfix: Fix a stack overflow error if nameless commands had fallthrough. #665
• Bugfix: A subcommand callback could be executed multiple times if it was a member of an option group. #666
• Bugfix: Fix an issue with vectors of multi argument types where partial argument sets did not result in an error. #661
• Bugfix: Fix an issue with type the template matching on C++20 and add some CI builds for C++20. #663
• Bugfix: Fix typo in C++20 detection on MSVC. #706
• Bugfix: An issue where the detection of RTTI being disabled on certain MSVC platforms did not disable the use of dynamic cast calls. #666
• Bugfix: Resolve strict-overflow warning on some GCC compilers. #666
• Backend: Add additional tests concerning the use of aliases for option groups in config files. #666
• Build: Add support for testing in meson and cleanup symbolic link generation. #701, #697
• Build: Support building in WebAssembly. #679

Version 2.1.2: Better subproject builds

• Use main for the main branch of the repository #657
• Bugfix(cmake): Enforce at least C++11 when using CMake target #656
• Build: Don't run doxygen and CTest includes if a submodule #656
• Build: Avoid a warning on CMake 3.22 #656
• Build: Support compiling the tests with an external copy of Catch2 #653

Version 2.1.1: Quick Windows fix

• A collision with min/max macros on Windows has been fixed. #642
• Tests pass with Boost again #646
• Running the pre-commit hooks in development no longer requires docker for clang-format #647

Version 2.1: Names and callbacks

The name restrictions for options and subcommands are now much looser, allowing a wider variety of characters than before, even spaces can be used (use quotes to include a space in most shells). The default configuration parser was improved, allowing your configuration to sit in a larger file. And option callbacks have a few new settings, allowing them to be run even if the option is not passed, or every time the option is parsed.

• Option/subcommand name restrictions have been relaxed. Most characters are now allowed. #627
• The config parser can accept streams, specify a specific section, and inline comment characters are supported #630
• force_callback & trigger_on_parse added, allowing a callback to always run on parse even if not present or every time the option is parsed #631
• Bugfix(cmake): Only add CONFIGURE_DEPENDS if CLI11 is the main project #633
• Bugfix(cmake): Ensure the cmake/pkg-config files install to a arch independent path #635
• Bugfix: The single header file generation was missing the include guard. #620