stop parsing flags when -- is provided in command line

Description

Currently the argument parser doesn't honor a -- in the command line which might be necessary to allow "flag like arguments" to be parsed. (i.e. a regular argument which starts with a -; for example a file name -x).

If this breaks existing behaviour I'd like to have this as an option in the settings.yml at least, although i don't see much reason why this shouldn't be enabled by default as most gnu based cli's already work this way.

Have you tried catch_all?

bahsly.yml

name: download
help: Sample minimal application without commands
version: 0.1.0

catch_all: true   # <= this

args:
- name: source
  required: true
  help: URL to download from
- name: target
  help: "Target filename (default: same as source)"

flags:
- long: --force
  short: -f
  help: Overwrite existing files

examples:
- download example.com
- download example.com ./output -f

output

$ ./download src dest -f -- -anything -else can be here
args:
- ${args[--force]} = 1
- ${args[source]} = src
- ${args[target]} = dest

other_args:
- ${other_args[*]} = -anything -else can be here
- ${other_args[0]} = -anything
- ${other_args[1]} = -else
- ${other_args[2]} = can
- ${other_args[3]} = be
- ${other_args[4]} = here

actually i wasn't aware of this flag (or forgot about it). it would help in cases where the author of the script intentionally wants to grab for example a bash command that should be called (like docker run image cmd... does). however my described usecase is slightly different.

example:

name: inspect
help: Sample minimal application without commands
version: 0.1.0

args:
- name: filename
  required: true
  help: a file on your disk

examples:
- inspect file.txt

sometimes regular arguments look like flags as they begin with a - (for example a actual file which is called -x.yml.). Those files might be created intentionally or by accident sometimes. for something like cat you would just write cat -- -x.yml. So I'm not talking about having additional args in a other_args array, but actually having ${args[filename]}="-x.yml"

what i mean is: in most clis -- means: stop parsing flags at all and consider everything from here a regular argument and not a flag

I see. Assuming I can implement it without changing the catch_all behavior - would you be able to test it for your use case using a pre-release / source build?

Sure. I'm glad if I can help. Bashly is a great framework I use quite a lot.

It is implemented in #735

Assuming you have Ruby installed, you can build from source (from the feature branch)

git clone --depth 1 --branch add/end-of-options-delimiter \
   https://github.com/bashly-framework/bashly.git
cd bashly
bundle install
bundle exec run gem install

This installs the branch version of Bashly locally.

If you are uncomfortable with this, I will release a pre-release gem.

i ran everything in a ruby docker container and generated my project with it. every worked as i would expect it.

Excellent. Thanks.

I will merge it, and it will be a part of the 2.0.0 release that comes hopefully soon.
Once I merge you can use the dannyben/bashly:edge image if you want.

Version 2.0.0 released. Thanks for this issue.

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stop parsing flags when `--` is provided in command line #734

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stop parsing flags when -- is provided in command line #734

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DannyBen commented on Sep 25, 2026

bahsly.yml

output

hojerst commented on Sep 25, 2026

DannyBen commented on Sep 25, 2026

hojerst commented on Sep 26, 2026

DannyBen commented on Sep 26, 2026

hojerst commented on Sep 26, 2026

DannyBen commented on Sep 26, 2026

DannyBen commented on Sep 27, 2026

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stop parsing flags when `--` is provided in command line #734