How to identify if an option was supplied without a value with Symfony Console?

Question

With the Symfony3 Console, how can I tell when a user supplied an option, but supplied it without a value? As opposed to not supplying the option at all?

As an example, take the following console configuration.

<?php

class MyCommand extends \Symfony\Component\Console\Command\Command
{
    // ...

    protected function configure()
    {
        $this->setName('test')
            ->setDescription('update an existing operation.')
            ->addOption(
                'option',
                null,
                InputOption::VALUE_OPTIONAL,
                'The ID of the operation to update.'
            );
    }
}

The command help will illustrate the option as --option[=OPTION], so I can call this the following ways.

bin/console test
bin/console test --option
bin/console test --option=foo

However, $input->getOption() will return NULL in the first two cases. I expected in the second case that it would return TRUE, or something to indicate the option was supplied.

So I don't know how to identify the difference the option not being supplied at all, and it being supplied but without a value.

If there is no way to tell the difference, what is the use-case for InputOption::VALUE_OPTIONAL?

score 14 · Accepted Answer · edited May 10 '19 at 23:28

14

Since Symfony 3.4, you can just set the default to false and check:

if the value is false the option doesn't exist
if the value is null the option exists without a value
otherwise it has its value

e.g.

$this->addOption('force', null, InputOption::VALUE_OPTIONAL, 'Force something', false);

$force = $input->getOption('force') !== false;

edited May 10 '19 at 23:28

miken32

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answered May 24 '18 at 21:22

ScorpioT1000

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1

This works, and is safer than the current accepted answer because this method works with shortcuts correctly. – Adambean Apr 21 '20 at 13:57
Yes, with newer version of Symfony, this is definitely is preferred solution. – JasonGabler May 20 '20 at 23:45
No longer correct since Symfony 4.4. Whether I pass the option, or not, the value is always NULL, unless specified. – MoDzeus Jan 27 '22 at 08:10

martin · Answer 2 · 2016-09-09T08:38:13.897

8

You're combining two things together. Option with no value InputOption::VALUE_NONE and an option with an optional value InputOption::VALUE_OPTIONAL.

The documentation says: http://symfony.com/doc/current/console/input.html

There is nothing forbidding you to create a command with an option that optionally accepts a value. However, there is no way you can distinguish when the option was used without a value (command --language) or when it wasn't used at all (command). In both cases, the value retrieved for the option will be null.

This describes exactly your case.

You can't distinguish when a parameter wasn't passed at all or was passed but with no value. That's what InputOption::VALUE_NONE was made for.

Depending on your usecase you can supply a default value for a parameter which will be used in console test and console test --option cases.

Also note, that addOption takes as an argument a shortcut as the second argument.

public function addOption($name, $shortcut = null, $mode = null, $description = '', $default = null)

edited Sep 09 '16 at 08:38

answered Sep 09 '16 at 08:32

martin

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1

Thanks for confirming. It still raises the question (not at you, but just in general,) why does this feature exists? I.e. Why offer the the ability for an option to have an optional value if the command can only identify the option was provided when it has a value. How does someone put that to good use? – Courtney Miles Sep 09 '16 at 11:12
Simple - switches! `command` would simply run it, `command --verbose` would run it verbose. – Rob Mar 01 '19 at 20:12
`$input->getOption('switch-option')` should either return `true` or `false` based on its existence. – ssi-anik Sep 29 '22 at 03:17

JasonGabler · Answer 3 · 2021-06-10T22:50:49.547

Edit on 6/10/21: This only applies to Symfony 3.3 and below. The correct answer is now the one provided by ScorpioT1000

After poking around in Symfony\Component\Console\Input\InputInterface, I discovered the getParameterOption() method which provides the ability to differentiate between an option not used, an option used without a value, and an option used with a value.

In the command's configure() method:

$this->addOption('test', null, InputOption::VALUE_OPTIONAL);

In the command's execute() method:

$test = $input->getOption('test'); $rawTest = $input->getParameterOption('--test');

Produces the following values for the given command lines:

> bin/console some:cmd

$test => null

$rawTest => false

> bin/console some:cmd --test

$test => null

$rawTest => null

> bin/console some:cmd --test=something

$test => "something"

$rawTest => "something"

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 28 '23 at 15:33

0

For some reason, the other answers didn't work for me. What worked for me was:

if (is_null($input->getParameterOption('--zip', 'NOT_SET'))) {
  // --zip without a value.
}

answered Apr 28 '23 at 15:33

Lucas Bustamante

15,821
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How to identify if an option was supplied without a value with Symfony Console?

4 Answers4