Default argparse help output is ugly:
usage: gl.EXE [-h] [--version]
{track,untrack,status,diff,commit,branch,tag,checkout,merge,resolve,fuse,remote,publish,switch,init,history}
...
Gitless - a version control system built on top of Git - http://gitless.com
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--version show program's version number and exit
subcommands:
{track,untrack,status,diff,commit,branch,tag,checkout,merge,resolve,fuse,remote,publish,switch,init,history}
track start tracking changes to files
untrack stop tracking changes to files
status show status of the repo
...
How can I format the output to be exactly like example below. With preserved order of commands
Gitless - a version control system built on top of Git - http://gitless.com
commands:
track start tracking changes to files
untrack stop tracking changes to files
status show status of the repo
...
Subclassing argparse.RawDescriptionHelpFormatter was too much work, so I've used this hack to extract command list and build my own message.
def print_help(parser):
"""print help for humans"""
print(parser.description)
print('\ncommands:\n')
# https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20094215/argparse-subparser-monolithic-help-output
# retrieve subparsers from parser
subparsers_actions = [
action for action in parser._actions
if isinstance(action, argparse._SubParsersAction)]
# there will probably only be one subparser_action,
# but better save than sorry
for subparsers_action in subparsers_actions:
# get all subparsers and print help
for choice in subparsers_action._choices_actions:
print(' {:<19} {}'.format(choice.dest, choice.help))