Optik help/metavar delimiters (SF #815264)

I've just been looking at SF bug #815264 (which is really a feature
request); here's the text of the "bug":

"""
For options with arguments (--option=ARGUMENT), the syntax -oARGUMENT is
valid. However, it's difficult to read in the help output of commands.

Displaying the (optional) space in help output would improve
readability. For example it would look like this:

  -o ARGUMENT

(took me awhile to figure out that -oARGUMENT wasn't
equivalent to -o -A -R ... but that's a feature... )
"""

After a bit of fiddling, I totally agree -- "-f FILE" looks better than
"-fFILE".  So I think this should be the default.  I also think it
should be customizable.  Here's the API I propose:

  # First get my hands on a HelpFormatter, either by creating my
  # own or fetching the one OptionParser creates in its constructor.
  formatter = ...

  # Fiddle with the option/metavar delimiters.
  formatter.set_short_opt_delimiter(" ")  # proposed Optik 1.5 behaviour
  formatter.set_short_opt_delimiter("")   # revert to pre-1.5 behaviour
  formatter.set_long_opt_delimiter("=")   # Optik 1.4 and 1.5 behaviour
  formatter.set_long_opt_delimiter(" ")   # alternate syntax if you prefer

With this, there are four basic styles for option help:

  1) -uUSER, --user=USER   show only revisions by USER
  2) -u USER, --user=USER  show only revisions by USER
  3) -uUSER, --user USER   show only revisions by USER
  4) -u USER, --user USER  show only revisions by USER

#1 is all you get with Optik 1.4.1 and earlier.
#2 is my proposed new default for Optik 1.5.
#3 and #4 are available if you want them.

If you pass an invalid delimiter to either set_short_opt_delimiter() or
set_long_opt_delimiter(), it raises ValueError.  You can't specify an
arbitrary delimiter, because Optik only supports these four syntaxes!

I'll attach a patch that implements this.  (Err, this doesn't update the
test suite.)  Comments welcome...

        Greg
-- 
Greg Ward <[email protected]>                         http://www.gerg.ca/
Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proven innocent.


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