Is there a way to set up Clap or another arg lib to accept a plain '-' or '+' so that I can obtain argument groups without a named flag?

Question

I would like to be able to pass arguments using only the - and the + characters in the following format to clap or other arg lib.

program -i infile.txt -o outfile.txt - stra strb strc - strd stre strf + strg + strh stri

Where in the program I could then obtain vectors with the following groupings...

[stra, strb, strc]

[strd, stre, strf]

[strg]

[strh, stri]

Is this possible in Clap or another rust arg library? If so how can I accomplish it?

Answer 1

That is an unusual notation, and I wouldn't expect any library to have an option for it.

Usually -- stops parsing arguments, so you can have your - after this delimiter:

program -i infile -- special - separator - args

Otherwise you'll need to get std::env::args().collect::<Vec<_>>() yourself, and split out or preprocess these args before passing them to Clap.