Pass resource from Command To Subcommands in urfave/cli/v2 - go

Question

Is is possible, and if so how, to let a Command initialize a resource and pass it down to its Subcommands. Image an application that takes its arguments like
$ mycmd db --connect <...> create <...>
$ mycmd db --connect <...> update <...>
This may not be a great example but it illustrates the concept. Here db is some resource that all the subcommands depend on. I would like a single function to be responsible for the initialization of the db resource and then pass the initialized resource down to the subcommands. I can't figure out how to do this with urfave/cli/v2 .
You could do it by creating two separate cli.Apps, one that parses the db part of the arguments just to create a context.Context with context.WithValue and then use that context to create the second cli.App which would parse the remainder of the arguments. I'm sure there's a better way to do it.
I'm grateful for any help!

Answer 1

You can achieve this with context values. You set the value in the Before callback of the parent Command. Below code is copied and modified from the subcommands example:
package main
import (
"context"
"fmt"
"log"
"os"
"github.com/urfave/cli/v2"
)
func main() {
app := &cli.App{
Commands: []*cli.Command{
{
Name: "db",
Before: func(c *cli.Context) error {
db := "example"
c.Context = context.WithValue(c.Context, "db", db)
return nil
},
Subcommands: []*cli.Command{
{
Name: "connect",
Action: func(c *cli.Context) error {
db := c.Context.Value("db").(string) // remember to assert to original type
fmt.Println("sub command:", db)
return nil
},
},
},
},
},
}
err := app.Run(os.Args)
if err != nil {
log.Fatal(err)
}
}
This main uses a string so that you can copy paste and run it. You can replace string with your DB object.
How to test:
$ go build -o example
$ ./example db connect
sub command: example