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picocli

How can I construct the help functionality to divide subcommands into groups with separate descriptive headers?

A tool I am currently working on has a lot of subcommands which makes picocli's help output unclear. My code looks like this:

@Command(name = "toolName",
    version = "version",
    sortOptions = false,
    parameterListHeading = "%nParameters:%n",
    optionListHeading = "%nOptions:%n",
    commandListHeading = "%nThese are common commands:%n%n",
    subcommands = {
    command1.class,
    command2.class,
    command3.class,
    etc.class }

With help as:

@Option(names = {"-h", "--help"}, scope = ScopeType.INHERIT, usageHelp = true,
        description = "Display this help message.")
boolean usageHelpRequested;

I want the help output to look similar to git's:

git bash --help output

Here subcommands are divided into different functionalities (like start a working area) with a description. Is this possible using picocli?

Solution

  • Yes that is possible by diving under the hood of picocli's Help API.

    One idea is to have a custom IHelpSectionRenderer, see this example: https://github.com/remkop/picocli/blob/main/picocli-examples/src/main/java/picocli/examples/customhelp/GroupingDemo.java