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RE: What should Python apps do when asked to show help?

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From Dan Strohl <D.Strohl@F5.com>
Newsgroups comp.lang.python
Subject RE: What should Python apps do when asked to show help?
Date Thu, 28 Apr 2016 17:25:54 +0000
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Yeah, if I am handling arguments from the command line, I use argparse, if I am doing a cli based app (so, going back and forth in interacting with the command line), I would look at clint (https://github.com/kennethreitz/clint)

As many people have said here, don’t reinvent the wheel.

Dan


From: John Wong [mailto:gokoproject@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2016 10:06 AM
To: Dan Strohl <D.Strohl@F5.com>
Cc: alister <alister.ware@ntlworld.com>; python-list@python.org
Subject: Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help?



On Thu, Apr 28, 2016 at 1:02 PM, Dan Strohl via Python-list <python-list@python.org<mailto:python-list@python.org>> wrote:
I would suggest using argparse https://docs.python.org/3/library/argparse.html as it handles all of that natively... including validating arguments, showing errors, help, etc... however, assuming you don't want to;
Totally agree with this approach. Command line should stick with argparse. Personally I'd stick with argparse and not other open source projects which is built on argparse (or optparse, the one you don't want to use, but eh some people decided to do that anyway because of some limitations in argparse).

In fact you shouldn't need to implement -h/--help when you use argparse. If a user is going to use the command line, you can almost always assume the user can use -h/--help, or for those familiar with Linux just provide a man page.

After all, what you need is a very clear documentation upfront prior to the installation so your users can refer to that for ultimate help.

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Thread

What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-04-29 02:33 +1000
  Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? alister <alister.ware@ntlworld.com> - 2016-04-28 16:45 +0000
    RE: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Dan Strohl <D.Strohl@F5.com> - 2016-04-28 17:02 +0000
    Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? John Wong <gokoproject@gmail.com> - 2016-04-28 13:05 -0400
    RE: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Dan Strohl <D.Strohl@F5.com> - 2016-04-28 17:25 +0000
    Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2016-04-28 10:27 -0700
  Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2016-04-28 09:49 -0700
  Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-04-29 03:06 +1000
  Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Irmen de Jong <irmen.NOSPAM@xs4all.nl> - 2016-04-28 19:08 +0200
    Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-04-28 20:31 +0300
      Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2016-04-29 18:04 +1200
    RE: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Dan Strohl <D.Strohl@F5.com> - 2016-04-28 17:32 +0000
  Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Jussi Piitulainen <jussi.piitulainen@helsinki.fi> - 2016-04-28 20:30 +0300
  Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Random832 <random832@fastmail.com> - 2016-04-28 13:30 -0400
  Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@gmail.com> - 2016-04-28 17:33 +0000
  RE: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Dan Strohl <D.Strohl@F5.com> - 2016-04-28 17:39 +0000
  Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Random832 <random832@fastmail.com> - 2016-04-28 13:40 -0400
  Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@gmail.com> - 2016-04-28 18:14 +0000
    Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-04-28 21:31 +0300
      Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@gmail.com> - 2016-04-28 19:39 +0000
      Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Random832 <random832@fastmail.com> - 2016-04-28 15:51 -0400
      Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@gmail.com> - 2016-04-28 21:08 +0000
        Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-04-29 11:40 +1000
          manpage writing [rst, asciidoc, pod] was [Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help?] "Martin A. Brown" <martin@linux-ip.net> - 2016-04-29 06:32 -0700
          Re: manpage writing [rst, asciidoc, pod] was [Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help?] Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2016-04-29 07:06 -0700
            Re: manpage writing [rst, asciidoc, pod] was [Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help?] Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-04-29 08:17 -0700
          Re: manpage writing [rst, asciidoc, pod] was [Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help?] Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2016-04-30 12:25 +1000
            Re: manpage writing [rst, asciidoc, pod] was [Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help?] Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-04-29 20:20 -0700
              Re: manpage writing [rst, asciidoc, pod] was [Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help?] Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2016-04-29 21:06 -0700
                Re: manpage writing [rst, asciidoc, pod] was [Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help?] Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-04-29 23:37 -0700
                Re: manpage writing [rst, asciidoc, pod] was [Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help?] Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2016-04-30 00:44 -0700
          Writing manual pages using Python code (was: manpage writing) Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2016-04-30 12:25 +1000
          Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? cs@zip.com.au - 2016-05-01 10:06 +1000
  Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2016-04-28 19:15 -0700
    Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-04-28 22:00 -0700
      Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Jussi Piitulainen <jussi.piitulainen@helsinki.fi> - 2016-04-29 09:02 +0300
      Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-04-29 19:36 +1000
        Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-04-29 02:53 -0700
          Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-04-30 11:20 +1000
            Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2016-04-29 19:09 -0700
            Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Random832 <random832@fastmail.com> - 2016-04-29 22:16 -0400
              Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-04-29 19:27 -0700
                Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Random832 <random832@fastmail.com> - 2016-04-29 22:36 -0400
                Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-04-29 19:46 -0700
                Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Random832 <random832@fastmail.com> - 2016-04-29 23:14 -0400
                Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2016-04-30 12:49 +1000
                Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-04-30 13:23 +1000
                Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2016-04-30 14:06 +1000
                Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Random832 <random832@fastmail.com> - 2016-04-30 00:16 -0400
                Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-04-29 21:34 -0700
                Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Random832 <random832@fastmail.com> - 2016-04-30 01:20 -0400
                Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? cs@zip.com.au - 2016-05-01 09:51 +1000
                Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-05-01 14:28 +1000
                Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Random832 <random832@fastmail.com> - 2016-04-30 20:41 -0400
                Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@gmail.com> - 2016-05-01 02:30 +0000
                Re: What should Python apps do when asked to show help? Random832 <random832@fastmail.com> - 2016-04-30 23:46 -0400

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