Description
Consider the following argument parser:
import argparse
import rich.console
from rich_argparse import RichHelpFormatter
console = rich.console.Console(markup=False, emoji=False, highlight=False)
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
prog="list",
description="Show all installed applications",
add_help=False,
formatter_class=RichHelpFormatter,
)
parser.add_argument(
"config_name",
nargs="?",
help="a configuration name",
)
parser.add_argument(
"-r",
"--raw",
action="store_true",
required=True,
help="show apps without formatting",
)
mutex = parser.add_mutually_exclusive_group()
mutex.add_argument(
"--rich",
action="store_true",
help="Rich and poor are mutually exclusive. Choose either one but not both.",
)
mutex.add_argument(
"--poor", action="store_false", dest="rich", help="Does poor mean --not-rich 😉?"
)
parser.add_argument(
"-s",
"--state",
choices=["running", "stopped"],
help="only show apps in a given state",
)
console.print(parser.format_help())Note the inconsistent highlighting of brackets and braces.
- options (i.e.
-s) that are not required are surrounded in unstyled brackets - positional arguments that are not required (i.e.
config_name) are surrounded by brackets styled withargparse.args - the mutually exclusive options
--richand--poorare surrounded by unstyled brackets and separated by an unstyled pipe character - the choices for the
-soption are also mutually exclusive. They are surrounded by braces, and separated by a comma, but the braces and comma are styled withargparse.metavar
Observation: The brackets around optional arguments and the pipe separating the mutually exclusive options are the only text output which can not be styled using RichHelpFormatter.styles.
Suggestion: choices for an option (i.e. -s) of which you can only choose one, and mutually exclusive options (i.e. --rich and --poor), of which you can only choose one, should be rendered consistently.
Questions:
- Are these behaviors with [brackets|braces|commas|pipes] intentional?
- If not, would you consider rendering all of these symbols (braces, brackets, commas, pipes) with a new style, perhaps something like "argparse.symbols"?