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Please provide a ‘help’ command

Open kseistrup opened this issue 8 years ago • 4 comments

It's a bit confusing with apps that insists on using one or two dashes for --help and --version, when the rest of the commands don't use dashes.

I suggest that -h, --help, and help be made equivalent (and the same pattern for version). this will make the interface more consistent.

kseistrup avatar Feb 20 '16 15:02 kseistrup

I've implemented --version today without having -v alternative (probably missed that one). But for the --help flag i've implemented a -h one yesterday based on an issue report. pocket-cli uses Click's group and sub commands to define app specific functionality. I am not sure what "version" sub command might add in terms of value rather than just being --version or -v for that matter.

rakanalh avatar Feb 20 '16 15:02 rakanalh

The value would be that the user doesn't have to remember that help and version requires a dash or two.

New users that are used to the unix style would probably try -h or --help to get some help. But once you have learned that the majority of things you can say to Pocket-CLI is without dashes, it is bothersome to remember that help and version takes dashes for no other apparent reason than to convenience its author.

Pocket-CLI is not alone in this context, and “recently” Go programs have contributed with apps that require only a single dash for long options (e.g., -help).

kseistrup avatar Feb 20 '16 15:02 kseistrup

For version, consistency does make sense. However, in the case of help, the --help flag is used globally as in pocket-cli --help to see what the app can do and per subcommand pocket-cli fetch --help. So going for something like pocket-cli fetch help is not a good idea (which i don't think you're suggesting).

rakanalh avatar Feb 20 '16 15:02 rakanalh

Right, that makes sense.

kseistrup avatar Feb 20 '16 16:02 kseistrup