Develop a Command Line Interface(CLI) Program with .NET Core | HOW TO - Code Samples

https://StartupHakk.com/?v=8U2U98Zled0

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GitHub Repo: https://github.com/slthomason/StartupHakk/tree/main/106_CLI_in_DotNET_Core

Scenario
We have a web application. The application is for companies in the construction industry to manage their delivery tickets. The application is a modern web application built on the MEAN stack with a well designed RESTful API. The API is consumed by the in-house built web portal and the Android/iOS app. The API is also open to any third-party program for integration.

Everything looks good. More and more customers signed up to use this application. One of the most requested functions from customers is to export the tickets in a certain format and import into their accounting system for billing purposes.

We thought the open API was enough. But challenges here are:

Almost every customer uses a different accounting software. Some of them prefer XML. Some of them prefer CSV. Very few like JSON.
Most of those accounting systems are still on-premise software installed in their local network.
Even if some customers are using the same accounting software, they could ask for a different format with different data fields.
Most customers don’t have in-house developers
We decided to build a CLI program to fill this gap. Even though we could build every export format into the customer web portal with configurations, we always find it is not flexible enough to meet customer’s all kinds of requirements with the export format. Also, some customers want to automate this process in their local network. A CLI program is perfect for this scenario. With the CLI, we could write a script to automate the process and customize the export data format with the customization settings saved locally.

Ideas
What is Command-line Interface(CLI)? See the wikipedia.
Some great examples are:

1. aws cli
2. azure cli
3. dotnet cli
4. angular cli


Why CLI?
Programs with command-line interfaces are generally easier to automate via scripting.

Why .NET Core?
Obviously .NET Core is not the only option to build a CLI. And it is not even the most popular one at this moment for sure. Python or Node.js could be the better option if you are familiar with them. But compare with .NET, .NET Core at least has met one of the most important requirements: cross platform.


Afterthought
It is a very simple program. But it does indicate the necessary parts to build a CLI program. As a developer, CLI is more developer friendly than the rich GUI. When we manage our cloud solution on AWS or Azure, or use some framework like .NET Core or Angular 2+, we try to use the command line interface as much as we can to avoid using the more user friendly portal. Those experiences will definitely help us understand how a well-designed CLI program works and some important conventions of the syntax design.

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