jarro2783/cxxopts

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

4800 stars · 652 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

A lightweight, header-only C++ command line option parser supporting GNU-style syntax. It handles long and short options, typed values, defaults, and positional arguments with a simple declarative API.

Use cases

• parse command line arguments in a C++ program
• support --long and -s short options with GNU syntax
• handle positional arguments after --
• define typed options with defaults for a CLI tool
• add argument parsing to a header-only C++ project without dependencies

When to choose

• you need a lightweight, header-only option parser with no build step
• you want GNU-style long/short option parsing in C++
• you want typed options with automatic parsing via operator>>
• you need MIT-licensed parsing available via Conan, vcpkg, or Homebrew

When to avoid

• you need subcommands or complex CLI frameworks with help generation beyond basics
• you are not writing C++
• you need runtime-configurable or config-file-driven options

Facets

library · maturity stable

parser cli developer-tools developer-tools cross-platform cpp cross-platform windows header-only command-line-parsing gnu-style-options lightweight command-line linux macos

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