Nagios::Plugin::Getopt(3pm)				User Contributed Perl Documentation			       Nagios::Plugin::Getopt(3pm)

NAME

       Nagios::Plugin::Getopt - OO perl module providing standardised argument processing for Nagios plugins

SYNOPSIS

	 use Nagios::Plugin::Getopt;

	 # Instantiate object (usage is mandatory)
	 $ng = Nagios::Plugin::Getopt->new(
	   usage => "Usage: %s -H <host> -w <warning> -c <critical>",
	   version => '0.1',
	   url => 'http://www.openfusion.com.au/labs/nagios/',
	   blurb => 'This plugin tests various stuff.',
	 );

	 # Add argument - named parameters (spec and help are mandatory)
	 $ng->arg(
	   spec => 'critical|c=i',
	   help => q(Exit with CRITICAL status if fewer than INTEGER foobars are free),
	   required => 1,
	   default => 10,
	 );

	 # Add argument - positional parameters - arg spec, help text,
	 #   default value, required? (first two mandatory)
	 $ng->arg(
	   'warning|w=i',
	   q(Exit with WARNING status if fewer than INTEGER foobars are free),
	   5,
	   1);

	 # Parse arguments and process standard ones (e.g. usage, help, version)
	 $ng->getopts;

	 # Access arguments using named accessors or or via the generic get()
	 print $ng->warning;
	 print $ng->get('critical');

DESCRIPTION

       Nagios::Plugin::Getopt is an OO perl module providing standardised and simplified argument processing for Nagios plugins. It implements a
       number of standard arguments itself (--help, --version, --usage, --timeout, --verbose, and their short form counterparts), produces
       standardised nagios plugin help output, and allows additional arguments to be easily defined.

   CONSTRUCTOR
	 # Instantiate object (usage is mandatory)
	 $ng = Nagios::Plugin::Getopt->new(
	   usage => 'Usage: %s --hello',
	   version => '0.01',
	 );

       The Nagios::Plugin::Getopt constructor accepts the following named arguments:

       usage (required)
	   Short usage message used with --usage/-? and with missing required arguments, and included in the longer --help output. Can include a
	   '%s' sprintf placeholder which will be replaced with the plugin name e.g.

	     usage => qq(Usage: %s -H <hostname> -p <ports> [-v]),

	   might be displayed as:

	     $ ./check_tcp_range --usage
	     Usage: check_tcp_range -H <hostname> -p <ports> [-v]

       version (required)
	   Plugin version number, included in the --version/-V output, and in the longer --help output. e.g.

	     $ ./check_tcp_range --version
	     check_tcp_range 0.2 [http://www.openfusion.com.au/labs/nagios/]

       url URL for info about this plugin, included in the --version/-V output, and in the longer --help output (see preceding 'version' example).

       blurb
	   Short plugin description, included in the longer --help output (see below for an example).

       license
	   License text, included in the longer --help output (see below for an example). By default, this is set to the standard nagios plugins
	   GPL license text:

	     This nagios plugin is free software, and comes with ABSOLUTELY
	     NO WARRANTY. It may be used, redistributed and/or modified under
	     the terms of the GNU General Public Licence (see
	     http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.txt).

	   Provide your own to replace this text in the help output.

       extra
	   Extra text to be appended at the end of the longer --help output.

       plugin
	   Plugin name. This defaults to the basename of your plugin, which is usually correct, but you can set it explicitly if not.

       timeout
	   Timeout period in seconds, overriding the standard timeout default (15 seconds).

       The full --help output has the following form:

	 version string

	 license string

	 blurb

	 usage string

	 options list

	 extra text

       The 'blurb' and 'extra text' sections are omitted if not supplied. For example:

	 $ ./check_tcp_range -h
	 check_tcp_range 0.2 [http://www.openfusion.com.au/labs/nagios/]

	 This nagios plugin is free software, and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
	 It may be used, redistributed and/or modified under the terms of the GNU
	 General Public Licence (see http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.txt).

	 This plugin tests arbitrary ranges/sets of tcp ports for a host.

	 Usage: check_tcp_range -H <hostname> -p <ports> [-v]

	 Options:
	  -h, --help
	    Print detailed help screen
	  -V, --version
	    Print version information
	  -H, --hostname=ADDRESS
	    Host name or IP address
	  -p, --ports=STRING
	    Port numbers to check. Format: comma-separated, colons for ranges,
	    no spaces e.g. 8700:8705,8710:8715,8760
	  -t, --timeout=INTEGER
	    Seconds before plugin times out (default: 15)
	  -v, --verbose
	    Show details for command-line debugging (can repeat up to 3 times)

   ARGUMENTS
       You can define arguments for your plugin using the arg() method, which supports both named and positional arguments. In both cases the
       "spec" and "help" arguments are required, while the "label", "default", and "required" arguments are optional:

	 # Define --hello argument (named parameters)
	 $ng->arg(
	   spec => 'hello|h=s',
	   help => "Hello string",
	   required => 1,
	 );

	 # Define --hello argument (positional parameters)
	 #   Parameter order is 'spec', 'help', 'default', 'required?', 'label'
	 $ng->arg('hello|h=s', "Hello parameter (default %s)", 5, 1);

       spec
	   The "spec" argument (the first argument in the positional variant) is a Getopt::Long argument specification. See Getopt::Long for the
	   details, but basically it is a series of one or more argument names for this argument (separated by '|'), suffixed with an '=<type>'
	   indicator if the argument takes a value. '=s' indicates a string argument; '=i' indicates an integer argument; appending an '@'
	   indicates multiple such arguments are accepted; and so on. The following are some examples:

	   hello=s
	   hello|h=s
	   ports|port|p=i
	   exclude|X=s@
	   verbose|v+
       help
	   The "help" argument is a string displayed in the --help option list output, or it can be a list (an arrayref) of such strings, for
	   multi-line help (see below).

	   The help string is munged in two ways:

	   o   First, if the help string does NOT begins with a '-' sign, it is prefixed by an expanded form of the "spec" argument. For instance,
	       the following hello argument:

		 $ng->arg(
		   spec => 'hello|h=s',
		   help => "Hello string",
		 );

	       would be displayed in the help output as:

		 -h, --hello=STRING
		   Hello string

	       where the '-h, --hello=STRING' part is derived from the spec definition (by convention with short args first, then long, then
	       label/type, if any).

	   o   Second, if the string contains a '%s' it will be formatted via "sprintf" with the 'default' as the argument i.e.

		 sprintf($help, $default)

	   Multi-line help is useful in cases where an argument can be of different types and you want to make this explicit in your help output
	   e.g.

	     $ng->arg(
	       spec => 'warning|w=s',
	       help => [
		 'Exit with WARNING status if less than BYTES bytes of disk are free',
		 'Exit with WARNING status if less than PERCENT of disk is free',
	       ],
	       label => [ 'BYTES', 'PERCENT%' ],
	     );

	   would be displayed in the help output as:

	    -w, --warning=BYTES
	       Exit with WARNING status if less than BYTES bytes of disk are free
	    -w, --warning=PERCENT%
	       Exit with WARNING status if less than PERCENT of disk space is free

	   Note that in this case we've also specified explicit labels in another arrayref corresponding to the "help" one - if this had been
	   omitted the types would have defaulted to 'STRING', instead of 'BYTES' and 'PERCENT%'.

       label
	   The "label" argument is a scalar or an arrayref (see 'Multi-line help' description above) that overrides the standard type expansion
	   when generating help text from the spec definition. By default, "spec=i" arguments are labelled as "=INTEGER" in the help text, and
	   "spec=s" arguments are labelled as "=STRING". By supplying your own "label" argument you can override these standard 'INTEGER' and
	   'STRING' designations.

	   For multi-line help, you can supply an ordered list (arrayref) of labels to match the list of help strings e.g.

	     label => [ 'BYTES', 'PERCENT%' ]

	   Any labels that are left as undef (or just omitted, if trailing) will just use the default 'INTEGER' or 'STRING' designations e.g.

	     label => [ undef, 'PERCENT%' ]

       default
	   The "default" argument is the default value to be given to this parameter if none is explicitly supplied.

       required
	   The "required" argument is a boolean used to indicate that this argument is mandatory (Nagios::Plugin::Getopt will exit with your usage
	   message and a 'Missing argument' indicator if any required arguments are not supplied).

       Note that --help lists your arguments in the order they are defined, so you should order your "arg()" calls accordingly.

   GETOPTS
       The main parsing and processing functionality is provided by the getopts() method, which takes no arguments:

	 # Parse and process arguments
	 $ng->getopts;

       This parses the command line arguments passed to your plugin using Getopt::Long and the builtin and provided argument specifications.
       Flags and argument values are recorded within the object, and can be accessed either using the generic get() accessor, or using named
       accessors corresponding to your argument names. For example:

	 print $ng->get('hello');
	 print $ng->hello();

	 if ($ng->verbose) {
	   # ...
	 }

	 if ($ng->get('ports') =~ m/:/) {
	   # ...
	 }

       Note that where you have defined alternate argument names, the first is considered the citation form. All the builtin arguments are
       available using their long variant names.

   BUILTIN PROCESSING
       The "getopts()" method also handles processing of the immediate builtin arguments, namely --usage, --version, --help, as well as checking
       all required arguments have been supplied, so you don't have to handle those yourself. This means that your plugin will exit from the
       getopts() call in these cases - if you want to catch that you can run getopts() within an eval{}.

       "getopts()" also sets up a default ALRM timeout handler so you can use an

	 alarm $ng->timeout;

       around any blocking operations within your plugin (which you are free to override if you want to use a custom timeout message).

SEE ALSO

       Nagios::Plugin, Getopt::Long

AUTHOR

       Gavin Carr <gavin@openfusion.com.au>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

       Copyright (C) 2006-2007 by the Nagios Plugin Development Team.

       This module is free software. It may be used, redistributed and/or modified under either the terms of the Perl Artistic License (see
       http://www.perl.com/perl/misc/Artistic.html) or the GNU General Public Licence (see http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.txt).

perl v5.14.2							    2010-12-03					       Nagios::Plugin::Getopt(3pm)