How to run a command that has subcommands?

[OnkelTem]

From the docs:

Commands can also have subcommands, which are added with addSubcommand. A command with subcommands can't run its own code, so run doesn't need to be implemented.

Consider an example:

$ ip route
<prints routes>

$ ip route add ...
<adds a route>

$ ip route del ...
<removes a route>

So I cannot implement a similar CLI with the args package?

[lrhn]

Not sure what the question is.

Nothing in your example looks wrong.
What you cannot do it to have

ip

itself do anything but list its subcommands

[mahtaran]

@lrhn the docs currently state that it would not be possible to have a command with (possible) subcommands be run by itself:

core/pkgs/args/lib/command_runner.dart

Lines 259 to 261 in dc97530

	/// A command with subcommands is known as a "branch command" and cannot be run
	/// itself. It should call [addSubcommand] (often from the constructor) to
	/// register subcommands.

What you cannot do it to have ip itself do anything but list its subcommands

Is this because of a technical limitation or a design decision? The current behaviour (printing the usage help) is acceptable in most cases, but I believe it would be very valuable to be able to define the 'default' behaviour, when the top-level executable is called without any options.

[lrhn]

It's probably a design decision.

Since the dart CLI command itself has an effect without a sub-command, it's also not unreasonable to want that.

Either it can be any effect or just a default sub-command is another design question to answer.