[abathur]

Parsers designed for implementing CLI programs are generally too opinionated to handle ~strange commands. (In my terms I'd say it's a prescriptive parser as opposed to something that attempts to be flexible enough to describe nearly all existing CLIs).

[ablob]

Wouldn't it be easier to have a convenient library/parser for almost all of the use cases instead of an immensely complex catch-all solution? Having custom logic when required should almost always be less complex when such a ~strange command is to be implemented.

[abathur]

As I said, my usecase doesn't involve implementing the commands--it involves reliably identifying executables in the arguments to many different commands.

I can't go rewrite awk, find, and sed with an opinionated cli module. I have to deal with the current reality.

(you're roughly describing what I already do, and it scales poorly)