[Boost-users] setting program_options programmatically

From: Joshua ChaitinPollak (jpollak_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-05-22 17:20:19

Hello,

I'm gradually porting my application to Boost, and I'm starting to  
use the program_options library. I'm also using the boost::unit_test  
library, and for some higher level unit tests its often convenient to  
programmatically setup some properties specific to the test before it  
runs. I can't figure out how to programmatically set program_options  
in the variable_map however.

I currently wrap the boost::program_options interface with a simple  
Config class, so what I'd like to have is something like this:

Config::setProperty(std::string &option, std::string &value);
Config::setProperty(std::string &option, int value);
Config::setProperty(std::string &option, bool value);

But I can't even get a generic std::string implementation working. It  
looks like I have go through creating basic_option and  
basic_parsed_options objects and calling po::store(parsed_options,  
vm); except that instead of "std::string& option" above, I need to  
pass in the option_description& object, which starts to get messy.

Is there an elegant way of doing this?

Thanks,

Josh

-- 
Joshua ChaitinPollak
Software Engineer
Kiva Systems