Validating flags using Cobra - go

Question

The sketch below is a command line application written using Cobra and Go. I'd like to throw an error if the value of flag1 doesn't match the regex ^\s+\/\s+. How do I do that?
package cmd
import (
"fmt"
"os"
"github.com/spf13/cobra"
homedir "github.com/mitchellh/go-homedir"
"github.com/spf13/viper"
)
var flag1 string
var cfgFile string
// rootCmd represents the base command when called without any subcommands
var rootCmd = &cobra.Command{
Use: "cobra-sketch",
Short: "Sketch for Cobra flags",
Long: "Sketch for Cobra flags",
Run: func(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string) { fmt.Printf("Flag1 is %s\n", flag1)},
}
// Execute adds all child commands to the root command and sets flags appropriately.
// This is called by main.main(). It only needs to happen once to the rootCmd.
func Execute() {
cobra.CheckErr(rootCmd.Execute())
}
func init() {
cobra.OnInitialize(initConfig)
rootCmd.PersistentFlags().StringVar(&cfgFile, "config", "", "config file (default is $HOME/.cobra-sketch.yaml)")
rootCmd.PersistentFlags().StringVar(&flag1, "flag1", "", "Value of Flag 1")
}
// initConfig reads in config file and ENV variables if set.
func initConfig() {
if cfgFile != "" {
// Use config file from the flag.
viper.SetConfigFile(cfgFile)
} else {
// Find home directory.
home, err := homedir.Dir()
cobra.CheckErr(err)
// Search config in home directory with name ".cobra-sketch" (without extension).
viper.AddConfigPath(home)
viper.SetConfigName(".cobra-sketch")
}
viper.AutomaticEnv() // read in environment variables that match
// If a config file is found, read it in.
if err := viper.ReadInConfig(); err == nil {
fmt.Fprintln(os.Stderr, "Using config file:", viper.ConfigFileUsed())
}
}

Answer 1

Let's say a user runs the command like this: cobra-sketch --flag1 "hello". "hello" will be stored in the var flag1 string variable you have assigned to the flag, to check if the input matches any regexp, you can do:
var rootCmd = &cobra.Command{
Use: "cobra-sketch",
...
RunE: func(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string) error {
// You can also use MustCompile if you are sure the regular expression
// is valid, it panics instead of returning an error
re, err := regexp.Compile(`^\s+\/\s+`)
if err != nil {
return err // Handle error
}
if !regexp.MatchString(flag1) {
return fmt.Errorf("invalid value: %q", flag1)
}
fmt.Printf("Flag1 is %s\n", flag1)
return nil
},
}