What are the best/popular libraries for developing CLI apps/scripts?

Question

Many of the component libraries and toolkits I'm familiar with lack CLI-specific libraries (zend, kohana, etc..). Are there any libraries/tools that are designed specifically for developing CLI application (such as an abstraction of php's multi-threading library, pcntl/posix)?

Answer 1

ncurses is compatible with PHP, and is used to develop a wide number of CLI applications in many different languages.

More info: http://devzone.zend.com/article/1083

Answer 2

I've used PEAR package Console_CommandLine and was very satisfied. I may not fulfill all you requirements though, but it's worth giving it a look.

It helps parsing the input (arguments, options, sub-commands, etc...) and build basic functionnalities (usage, version, ...).