Just having `--help` or `--version` can make us get invalid args instead
of invalid subcommands. It doesn't make sense to do this unless
positionals are used. Even then it might not make sense but this is at
least a step in the right direction.
Unsure how I feel about this being backported to clap 3. It most likely
would be fine?
This was noticed while looking into #4218
Since the `name` is changed to be the package name, we can't use it as
(1) its not as predictable and (2) it can lead to conflicts if a
`Parser` is flattened into a `Parser`
In looking at other help output, I noticed that they use two spaces, in
place of clap's 4, and it doesn't suffer from legibility. If it
doesn't make the output worse, let's go ahead and make it as dense so we
fit more content on the screen.
This is a part of #4132
The builder function was deprecated in v3 and removed in v4 but the
derive masked that, so we're still adapting things but now with a path
towards removal.
In reviewing CLIs for #4132, I found some were providing helps on `-h`
vs `--help` and figured that could be built directly into clap. I had
considered not making this hint automatic but I figured the overhead of
checking if long exists wouldn't be too bad. The code exists (no binary
size increase) and just a simple iteration is probably not too slow
compared to everything else.
Fixes#1015
In switching to title case for help headings (#4123), it caused me to
look at "subcommand" in a fresh light. I can't quite put my finger on
it but "Subcommand" looks a bit sloppy. I also have recently been
surveying other CLIs and they just use "command" as well.
All of them are commands anyways, just some are children of others
(subcommands) while others are not (root or top-level commands, or just
command). Context is good enough for clarifying subcommands from root
commands.
This is part of #4132
I see them fulfilling two roles
- A form of bolding
- As a callback to their placeholder in usage
However, it is a bit of an unpolished look and no other CLI seems to do
it. This looks a bit more proefessional. We have colored help for
formatting and I think the sections relation to usage will be clear
enough.
While `TypedValueParser` will generally make it easier to reuse value
parsers, this was particularly written for flags. Besides having a
concrete API to document, an advantage over `fn(&str) -> Result<bool, E>`
value parsers is you get all of the benefits of the existing value
parsers for environment variable parsing.
The main breakinge change cases:
- `&[char]`: now requires removing `&`
- All other non-ID `&[_]`: hopefully #1041 will make these non-breaking
Fixes#2870
Documenting the existing behavior is challenging which suggests it can
cause user confusion. So long as its not too hard to explicitly
specify actions, we should just do it.
Fixes#4057
Previously the Arg id was set with the "name" attribute. This allows use
of an "id" attribute to match the underlying struct.
A side effect of this is that the "id" attribute may also be used on
Commands. This isn't desired, but given the current architecture of the
attribute parser, it's hard to avoid.
Fixes: #3785
This reduces ambiguity in how the different "multiple" parts of the API
interact and lowrs the amount of API surface area users have to dig
through to use clap.
For now, this is only a matter of cleaning up the public API. Cleaning
up the implementation is the next step.
With the new `ArgMatches`, we need to know what the inner type is.
Unfortunately, #3142 didn't list use cases for this. We dropped the
`Option` alias changing `T` but we still have a `Result` in there that
is aliased.
One potential workaround if people need it is if we add an attribute to
specify the `get_many::<T>` type. This would also help with
`ArgAction::Count` to support more data types.
Someone should not reasonably expect a coun flag to go up to billions,
millions, or even thousands. 255 should be sufficient for anyone,
right?
The original type was selected to be consistent with
`ArgMatches::occurrences_of` but that is also used for tracking how
many values appear which can be large with `xargs`.
I'm still conflicted on what the "right type" is an wish we could
support any numeric type. When I did a search on github though, every
case was for debug/quiet flags and only supported 2-3 occurrences,
making a `u8` overkill.
This came out of a discussion on #3792
We aren't enumerating arguments but values for an argument, so the name
should reflect that.
This will be important as part of #1807 when we have more specific
attribute names.
Dropping these will help simplify a lot, including removing of
occurrences.
These come at the cost of the derive not yet supporting types that impl
`From`.
This is the derive support for #3774 (see also #3775, #3777)
This combined with `value_parser` replaces `parser`. The main
frustration with this is that `ArgAction::Count` (the replacement for
`parse(from_occurrences)` must be a `u64`. We could come up with a
magic attribute that is meant to be the value parser's parsed type. We
could then use `TryFrom` to convert the parsed type to the user's type
to allow more. That is an exercise for the future. Alternatively, we
have #3792.
Prep for this included
- #3782
- #3783
- #3786
- #3789
- #3793
This will make it easier to divide off parser logic for adding in
actions.
This does mean we can't provide error reporting on bad values with
`bool` but
- We should have also been doing that for `from_flag`
- We'll be dropping this soon in clap4 anyways
For clap 3, its opt-in as a precaution against breaking
compatibility in some weird cases.
This does require the types to implement `Clone`.
Fixes#3734Fixes#3496Fixes#3589
This is part of the `App` rename.
Previously, I was concerned about not being able to deprecate
For backwards compatibility, we still expose the `IntoApp` name.
No good solution for transitioning the trate name, unfortnately, since
we can't mark `use`s as deprecated (we can, it just does nothing).
I got rid of the `into` prefix because that implies a `self` parameter
that doesn't exist.
Like was said in #2435, this is what people would expect.
While we should note this in a compatibility section in the changelog, I
do not consider this a breaking change since we should be free to adjust
the help output as needed. We are cautious when people might build up
their own content around it (like #3312) but apps should already handle
this with `--help` so this shouldn't be a major change.
We aren't offering a way for people to disable this, assuming people
won't need to. Longer term, we are looking at support "Actions" (#3405)
and expect those to help customize the flags. We'll need something
similar for the `help` subcommand.
Fixes#3440
This is a part of #2717
Some settings didn't get getters because
- They are transient parse settings (e.g. ignore errors)
- They get propagated to args and should be checked there
`is_allow_hyphen_values_set` is a curious case. In some cases, we only
check the app and not an arg. This seems suspicious.
For the derive API, you can only call `next_display_order` when dealing
with a flatten. Until we offer app attributes on arguments, the user can workaround with
this no-op flattens.
This is a part of #1807
This clarifies the intent and prepares for other functions doing the
same, like `next_display_order`. This will then open us to name
`subcommand_help_heading` and `display_order` similar.
The deprecation is waiting on 3.1.
This is part of #1807 and #1553.
When an Arg uses .min_values(0), that arg's value(s) are effectively
optional. This is conventionaly denoted in help messages by wrapping the
arg's values in square brackets. For example:
--foo[=value]
--bar [value]
This kind of argument can be seen in the wild in many git commands; e.g.
git-status(1).
Signed-off-by: Peter Grayson <pete@jpgrayson.net>
The error was when doing `#[clap(arg_enum, default_value_t = ...)]`.
Good example of why we should minimize `use`, at least in tests
(besides reducing merge conflicts, code churn, etc).
While I'm unsure how much type specialization we should do, we
intentionally have the `arg_enum` attribute for doing special behavior
based on it, so let's take advantage of it.
Fixes#3185
The extra whitespace was targeted at machine processing for a subset of
users for a subset of runs of CLIs. On the other hand, there is a lot
of concern over the extra verbose output.
A user can set the help template for man, if desired. They can even do
something (env? feature flag?) to make it only run when doing man
generation. We also have #3174 in the works.
So let's focus on the end-user reading `--help`. People wanting to use
`help2man` have workarounds to do what they need.
Fixes#3096
The main care about is that when we override a `flatten` / `subcommand`
doc comment in a parent container, that we make sure we take nothing
from the child container, rather than implicitly taking one `about` ut
not `long_about`.
To do this, and to play the most safe with long help detection, we reset
`long_about` to default when there is no doc comment body to use for
`long_about`.
Fixes#2983
Adding in a `StructOpt` derive with `structopt` attributes, with
deprecation notices. Unofrtunately, not as many deprecation warnings as
I would like. Apparently, you can't do them for a `use` of a derive? I
also wanted to inject code that would trigger a deprecation notice for
attributes but that would require enough of a refactor that I didn't
consider it worth it. We are at least providing a transition window
even if it means we'll have to remvoe it next major release without a
deprecation warning.
